Weslake's Experimental
Dualflow 100S Head
Weslake's
were experimenting on DHMCo's behalf with a type of 100S head that
was not in fact crossflow, but more correctly dualflow. To
be specific, as well as having the intake and exhaust manifolding in its
usual place, the off side carried two smaller
inlets,
where two additional carburettors were
positioned,
ie running with four carburettors. Weslakes
idea, stemmed from similar work that they had done on MG's, with a
view to having a greater volume of gas in the
larger
chamber behind the valves. Yes,
it did produce more power, unfortunately only if you manipulated the
throttles independantly through the range.
A minor problem, not able to be solved prior to a
time when they lacked Pentium 3 computers
and regularly putting men on Mars! In the
end, Weslakes came up with the idea to put an equalising pipe across
the two inlets on the offside and with that gave
up on the rather expensive project.
To my knowledge a couple of
dualflow
heads existed, I managed to buy just one
of
these heads, including the test data, from Weslakes, as it was still
laying under the bench twenty years after testing
ceased. Incidentally, you can pick
Weslakes
test heads, they will be stamped on the rear
vertical face of the head RA249, or whatever the test number will be. 
Ten
RA stands for Rye (the town on the English South coast, East of Brighton
where Weslakes are located), and the A stands
for,
yep, you guessed it Austin!
(Oh, I might mention before
anyone
rushes to the phone, I picked that place cleaner
than the turkeys breastbone on Thanksgiving day!) Despite
the known problems, a friend subsequently fitted it to AHS 3909 in
four carburretor form. Impressive
under the bonnet it was, the eventual resulting reasonably spectacular
fire, was not! With the 100S surviving,
the
dualflow head was again reduced to the role of a
interesting doorstop.
Credits
The Information above is an excerpt from
a message posted to the S.O.L.
Healey Mailing List by Joe
Jarick
Thanks to Steve Pike for access to the
Head
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