It will never happen James, those profiting from the creation of falsified or misleading info won't let it rest. Their only way out of the corner they create for themselves is to resort to personal attacks. It is hard to respect such behaviour and to respect the creation of lies and misinformation.
JL 202 engine block cast dates
Started by
S pack
, Sep 08 2013 11:47 AM
32 replies to this topic
#26
yel327
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Posted 27 November 2015 - 12:15 PM
#27
_Agent 34_
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Posted 27 November 2015 - 06:42 PM
F&*uck it
;
Graham Moore runs a smash repair shop round the corner and i'm going down there on monday to shirt front the old bloke and ask the serious questions about the day !
he owes me as he sprayed by corolla under insurance and didn't put back the "sport " in the correct spot on the boot !
I also know the Nixdorf xu1 driver ( bob forbes ) who partnered the Dick Johnson in the 72 race in the black car - i'm gona shirt front the old bloke on this as well- although he says that dick prepared the car and went with soft pads and this was what lost the race !
Then there are the Harry and Alf Bargwana - at the next HSRCA summer meeting when i see them , I'm gona to shirt front thoes two and ask the hard questions
Then there is mike Dwyer who has been an engine reconditioned on the northern beaches for 50 yrs been racing an torana and building more engines than i have had hot dinners for the holden 6 racers - when i asked him what block to get he certainly didn't say " dual cast "= shirt front
Then there is Pottsy - brian potts - hes been around for as long as mike dyer and still racing ht monaro red = shirt front
The funny thing is with all these blokes as they have blown up more engines then they car to remember or comment about.-
when i ask the hard questions I'll be back with the answers - if i don't return then I'll be doing something else and trying to blow up a holden 6 - with no dual stamp - but making close to 240 hp at the wheels
funny how a non dual stamped motor will still stand upto the same punishment - some 20 yrs on
the non duel stamped Ql block in the current car makes 205 hp at the wheels - red crank + starfire + Su's - and ten meetings old - bit fummy but hanging in there !
I'm going for a lie down.
PS i may not follow up on the above threats before christmas !
G
#28
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Posted 27 November 2015 - 06:56 PM
Agree Grant.
If the dual cast date blocks were oh so special why didn't Gricey have one in his 9/2e spec XU1 at Bathurst '73?
#29
_RS250_
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Posted 27 November 2015 - 07:35 PM
So after Tate and Harry hand picked the blocks, cranks, rods and heads at Holden, who did the machine work before assembly?
#30
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Posted 27 November 2015 - 08:02 PM
Agree Grant.
If the dual cast date blocks were oh so special why didn't Gricey have one in his 9/2e spec XU1 at Bathurst '73?
Because the one they wanted had already been put in my S model.
#31
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Posted 27 November 2015 - 11:44 PM
After reading this debate and watching the Tate interview on Shannon's Legends of Motorsport, I made a call today to someone who I've known for the last 25 years. While what i write does not resolve the dual code debate being a special cast, it certainly does shed some light on what was going on.
This person that I rang was the machinist where HDT would take their blocks, cranks and rods for preparation. (This person I'm very very close to, you could call him my 900klm away family as I stay with him every time I'm in Melbourne, I am best friends and best man to his son.) After many years of machining race engines for everyone including HDT, he went on to become the head teacher for race engine building and prep school at the Batman TAFE in Richmond where he has schooled all the current / top V8 Supercar engine builders from when they left school.
What he confirmed for me today.
1) Tatey would come in with loads of bits and they would continue to sift through it all to ensure they were prepping the "best of the best".
2) He said a common problem with the 202 was that they would split between the welsh plugs. He said they would "ultra sound" the blocks to pick the best. I asked did you have that technology back then? He said "yeah, can't be sure if it was called ultrasound back then but we put gel on the parts and with the gear we could see the thickness and anomalies" then picked out the thickest, including webbing thickness toward the bell housing.
3) He would machine the cranks and rods for Tatey and Tatey would be there checking his work so it was how Tatey wanted.
4) He was only familiar with Holden using Fishermans Bend foundry. I asked him about the Commonwealth Aircraft joint, he said he knows of the joint but wouldn't know if they ever cast Holden stuff there. He has not heard of this. He also rang an old work mate who also worked there with him and rang me back straight after, his mate also never heard of Commonwealth Aircraft joint doing casting for Holden.
5) This arrangement with Tatey went all the way through the A9X days, I'm talking ultrasound the works, nothing he saw was looked like 'special cast made' that no one else could have, they had to find the best from standard casts.
6) I questioned that could CAMS really check the engines for true compliance, were they really smart enough? He said yes CAMS did have some smart guys checking engines. He then started talking about some of the "funny business" that went on, but well after the XU1 era. An example he gave me was that the A9X timing chains would break so they put double row chains in (not allowed). When Brocky won Bathurst 6 laps in front with last lap record, few people were jumping up and down that his engine was illegal because it survived. CAMS stripped that engine straight away with focus on the timing chain must be a single row. Well when they stripped it down they saw the gears were for a double row chain but HDT did only have a single row chain in there, suggesting a double row was fitted in there at some stage prior.
7) When I kept quizzing him about any special blocks, he said the only special blocks he knows were made for Larry Perkins and had a small LP in them. I asked if it was stamped or cast he could not remember. Anyway now we are in the Group C/ Group A era.
8) Another time Larry got special heads that are cast by HOLDEN. This was for the V8 Supercars Holden race motor when every other Holden team had moved to running the Chev engine. Larry had Holden cast him heads and the valves were relocated much higher in the head. These were genuine Holden cast heads different to what a genuine Holden head should look like. CAMS found this out when checking but could not penalise him because the rules stated valve sizes not location. Anyway Larry got away with it that time but CAMS stopped him using those heads again in future.
9) I asked about the cutout in the top of the 202 block. I said is that to clear the bigger inlet valve. He said the inlet valve will clear the block no worries, the cutout is so there is more free area around the valve to make it flow better. He said "I've made tons of engines over my years like that, they run much better."
10) I asked about the 202 date codes. He was aware there are codes on the side of the block near the oil filter, I then asked him if he knew about a second code on the other side near the alternator. He was not aware of looking at these codes for any special cast blocks. He is simply never aware of any special cast 202 blocks, he said "they would of made slight changes over the years but I'm not aware of any special blocks, maybe they existed, maybe not, I'm not aware of any.........let me ring up my mate and see if he knows I'll get straight back to ya" (which he didn't know of any special cast blocks either when he rang back)
11) I asked him if he still talks to Tatey, he said "shit I haven't seen him in 30 years."
So like Grant has said above, my mate "Bluey" in Melbourne has built more 202's specially for race application than I've had hot dinners.
I'm only sharing what I've been told, makes no difference to me what the facts really are or suppose to be, there is no agenda, no nothing here. I hope you appreciate this feedback and take it for whatever you think it's worth.
If you have any technical race engine building questions that won't bust his chops, I can have them answered no problems as he is now retired. He retired from Batman TAFE about 4 years ago, then soon after retirement was poached again by a very reputable machine shop engine builders for 2 years before hanging up the towel for the final time. Now his fishing and drinking VB's.
Edited by RS250, 27 November 2015 - 11:51 PM.
#32
yel327
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Posted 28 November 2015 - 07:24 AM
Sam
Thought your mate might like to know the following, it'll clear it up for him.
Just a note on item 6, no V8 engines ever had single row timing chain gears, they are all 2 row. GMH used single chains on the double row gears. This is what is believed to have been Brock's undoing and why he didn't win in 1985.
However this would not apply in 1979 afaik. The A9X used the L34 homologated engine in Group C and would have had a double row chain.
L34 and F500 blocks are different blocks to standard, so that is at least one different/special block. Most of the mods done appeared at HJ engine release in normal production. But as always we are talking 40 year old memories, 4 year old memories can get blurred! Some things are easier than others to remember though, good info about Ian Tate.
#33
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Posted 30 November 2015 - 12:03 PM
Yel327,
Yes he was jumping back and forth with time frames......he actually said "geez Sammy you know how many beers I've had since then"
Can also confirm that some of the "dodgey stuff" that used to go on in the day was that pieces would be welded into the block to make the webbing thicker near the bell housing and then have the block "shotpeened" so that it would give the appearance of standard casting for competition compliance. Don't know if he was talking 202 or V8 when he told me but I can find out easy enough....so that again suggests to me that standard cast blocks were illegally "souped" up for racing.
The only other thing of special GMH cast that I was told and forgot to mention other than the LP block and heads were illegal conrods that were cast by Holden and only the factory team had them, when another competitor found out and threatened to tell all, a set of these rods magically appeared on his table first thing in the morning? These were V8 rods, not 202.
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