1600 Head gaket

[Gadgetman]

Evening all

any ideas why the 1600 head gasket cylinder holes are an odd shape?

i would expect them to be round but they aren’t ! 

Im un-shrouding my valves so the head gasket will overlap the area of the head that’s being cut back. ( it overlaps before I do any head work anyway!)

Can I use an early 2000 gasket which has round cylinder cut outs. ?

[Pete Lewis]

Cant answer why the 1600 has the kidney shape   the 2ltr is 10mm larger bore  and being a lot thicker will reduce the comp ratio a little

As far  as I  know the coolant porting is the same  but lay them together to check 

Always use hd washers and nuts , if you look at the old washers thye are very likely deformed 

They are special heat treated nuts as the torque on the 3/8   42/46lbft   or the mk2   7/16"  are   65/70lbft are much higher than

any std  nut will take  

[dave.vitesse]

As the block is different on the 1600 engine, to the 2 Litre, to be on the safe side don't fit without checking as Pete has suggested.

The main difference being that the 1600 engine has water all around each of the cylinders, whereas the 2 Litre is only half way round each cylinder.

The part number for the 1600 is 208652 On the early 2 Litre it is 207102. Which suggests they are different.

As its the best part of 50 years since I worked on a 1600 engine the memory is not that clear to give definitive answer.

Dave 

[JohnD]

52 minutes ago, dave.vitesse said:

the 1600 engine has water all around each of the cylinders, whereas the 2 Litre is only half way round each cylinder.

Is that correct, Dave?    I've just knocked all the core plugs out of a 2.5L block - it was filthy, inside and out! - and while the cylinders are very close together in their pairs, there is a water jacket space between them and the cam follower gallery.

John

[Pete Lewis]

theres also some reason the 1600 had a thin steel shim gasket and the 2 ltr had copper composite

maybe the 2ltr head pants a lot more

who knows??

pete

 

[dave.vitesse]

3 hours ago, JohnD said:

Is that correct, Dave?    I've just knocked all the core plugs out of a 2.5L block - it was filthy, inside and out! - and while the cylinders are very close together in their pairs, there is a water jacket space between them and the cam follower gallery.

John

This is correct John. This is why the Vitesse 6 cooling system holds 14 pint and the 2 Litre holds 11 pints. The Rad is the same on both. The cylinders are paired on the 2 Litre to fit then into the block. If I remember this different is the same as the 803/948 to the 1147 onward. This is one of the reasons why the 1600 is felt to be the smoothest of the three versions.  

Dave

[dave.vitesse]

The prototype six cylinder was the 948cc engine with two more cylinders giving 1422cc. It was then bored out to 1596cc. After this there was very little room in the block with the existing cylinder bore configuration to increase this. So the cylinders were paired (Desaxe or offset from the centre line) to create more room in the block for the larger bores of the 2 Litre engine. The same applies to 1147cc onward.  Originally the small four was only intended to have two sizes, 803cc and 948cc, hence the need to off set the bores to allow it's capacity to be increased. The same design team were responsible for both four and six cylinder engines. 

The 1600 head gasket may have come from the original 948cc spec? as it's closer to the early four cylinder engine than the 2 Litre.

Standard sold their pre-war six cylinder engine tooling and rights to Jaguar in the 1940's. Therefore, Standard needed a replacement so their new small four cylinder engine formed the basis for their new six.

Dave

[JohnD]

Dave,

Please relieve my ignorance! I fear I misunderstand. Desaxe means that the centre of the bore does not intersect the centre of the crank, and I can see how that could help design bigger bores.   But how was it done in pairs?   That the bores are closely paired, 1/2, 3/4, 5/6, with more space between pairs,  is to give more room on the crank for the main bearings, surely?  All six are all on a straight line.

JOhn

 

[NonMember]

I think you're absolutely right, John. Does the 1600 have offset gudgeon pins in the pistons? I'm fairly sure the 2L doesn't and I know the early Mk1 2L shared the same crank as the 1600. So I can't see any way the bore centres can be differently spaced. The whole lot could be moved off to one side to leave enough room to retain the narrower of the water passages, though.

[dave.vitesse]

You are correct John. However, the Standard people call it Desaxe, but as we know the cylinders are closely paired. I don't know why but that is what Harry Webster call the changes. I used their words to see if anybody pick up on it. So yes you are correct and I thought you would pick up on that one. Thanks as it makes the point that the Standard reference to Desaxe wasn't quite right.

What They did in fact was to remove the water channel between the paired cylinders hence making more room in the block for the larger bore.

Dave  

[dave.vitesse]

Rob, Maybe the Standard info wasn't correct. They did make changes to the block but possibly not as they stated?

Thanks both for the feedback as its always good to have a tech discussion.

Dave