[Healeys] HEAT SHIELDS

Curtis Arndt cnaarndt at gmail.com
Wed Apr 2 17:16:00 MDT 2014


Josef,

Thank you for your thoughts.  These cars when they were new drove
dependably for thousands of miles, and if restored properly to original
specifications they can drive on today's highways just as well.

There are some modifications that can be made that will improve
dependability and road worthiness, and none of them will loose you a point
in a Concours judging.

Some of these modifications include an aluminum head for the 100 since the
original heads were poorly designed and if they haven't cracked already,
they will in the future.  No points deduction for Concours since they look
identical down to the Westlake casting markings, the added bonus is that
the standard 100 aluminum road head will give 100M performance or better
with standard carburetors and setup.  The re-design allows them breath
twice as well.

A 3.54 rear differential setup will make highway cruising that much more
enjoyable, and is available to all Austin Healeys except for the early BN1s
with the spiral bevel rear gears.

There are radiator cores that appear identical to the original straight
finned pattern but have an extra tubes in them for better cooling.  Some of
the tubes have dimples in them which causes the water to swirl and aids in
cooling.  This is an old trick I learned from a friend who raced an
original 289 Cobra on the vintage circuit.

I am not a however fan of the new ignition systems, as I feel that a
properly restored distributor (Advanced Distributors does a great job) and
original Lucas items work well.  I have enough NOS Lucas points, rotors,
condensers, caps and plugs, etc... to last a lifetime. All purchased over
the years on eBay for the same or less $ than inferior reproduction
ignition components.

Bottom line, I drove my original '65 Austin Healey back and forth to
college, NY to Indiana in the early '70s, and through some of the worst
winter blizzards in the Midwest in a century (- 40degrees F windchill) and
my car never left me stranded.

Cheers,

Curt
AH Concours Chairman




On Wed, Apr 2, 2014 at 12:50 PM, Rick Swain <rjswain at hotmail.com> wrote:

> Amen Joseph. From time to time I have considered returning my car to
> positive
> ground, generator and points. Haven't yet but some day....
> Rick Swain'59 BN4
>
> > I own 3 Austin-Healeys, two big ones and a Sprite. All three have their
> original heat shields installed as I believe BMC knew what they had to do
> for
> best results. I really believe the Austin-Healey cars were good engineered
> and
> don`t need such modifications. Seems other owners feel their Austin-Healey
> cars are not done by skillful people. There might be better solutions
> available in modern cars now, but the BMC engineered solutions still work
> and
> my cars are running well. So I am still asking myself why should I change
> to
> solutions which perhaps bring the running system in my cars out of
> balance? I
> would solve a small problem on the one side to have more problems with
> others.
> > My long experiance is, stay with the factory specs and you have no
> problems.
> So why change this system to one you don`t know what come out? For those
> who
> don`t like their Austin-Healeys as they are, I would suggest to sell and
> buy a
> modern car without these shortcomings of classic cars. Classic cars have a
> soul like the skilful engineers who designed them. These were characters
> and
> they are gone. If you take the soul out of the cars they are only old
> metal.
> >
> > Josef Eckert
> > Konigswinter/Germany
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