Quote:
Originally Posted by kach22i
I wonder if this is similar to a four valve Wasserboxer or water cooled head like on some flat four VW powered aircraft.
The kit car magazines of the early 1980's were filled with such projects.
|
Porsche finally had to resort to water cooling on the later 935 heads after every single one of them suffered heat related DNF's at either Sebring or Daytona one year. I believe they were still two valve, however.
They did experiment with air cooled four valve heads, as did a number of other (mostly motorcycle) manufacturers. They all learned that it was quite difficult to pull off, due to the inherent "hot spot" between the exhaust valves. Harley uses targeted water cooling, just around the exhaust valves, to address this in their new M8 motor. Williams has apparently found some solution on their Singer motor, running four valve air cooled heads.
The motor under discussion, however, has stock heads. Kind of an interesting question, though, if there would be enough of a market for someone to develop four valve heads for the older air cooled motors. I rather suspect there are other limitations that would preclude extracting the full advantages of such, however.