Stromberg Heads on the up

[Matt Elan]

I was idly following a Stromberg head on ebay (item no 301298853096) which was supposed to be from a Lotus Cortina and it went for ?645! I was surprised as the last couple I'd bought were around the ?250 mark. So my 711 block project will be taking a back seat for a bit.....

[rgh0]

I did not know that Cortinas ever came with Stromberg heads?

Another one there on eBay at 400 pounds with a few days to go - but it has a couple of SE? cams with it that are worth a couple of hundred pounds on their own. Be interesting to see what it goes for. John McCoy and his Omnitech conversions are soaking up a lot of the spare Stromberg heads I think (I am down to my last Stromberg head having had 3 converted already) plus the general increase in the car values flows down to the component costs

cheers
Rohan

[PaulFinch]

Rohan,

Whats a ball park figure for the McCoy conversion?

Paul

[rgh0]

Depends exactly how much work you want done

My last one was done a couple of years ago- these were done as a batch of 5 heads.

The basic conversion about US$1500
CNC race porting about US$1000

seats / guides / valves / springs / shipping / etc extra depending on how much you want him to do.

Talk to John to get his current prices, the work is top class and the converted heads with his race porting are the best performing I believe. ( i.e. better than the new cast heads which in turn are much better than the original heads, But you do need a race category that allows them !!!)

cheers
Rohan

[PaulFinch]

Cheers Rohan,

I'm trying to think ahead and play 'the long game'.

Considering picking up a spare head or two and I guess with values only heading one way, now might be a good time.

I've asked for clarification from the CSCC regarding eligibility of this type of modification. They seem very loose with their regs i.e 1800cc alloy blocked twincs allowed so I imagine this wouldn't be a problem.

Paul

[rgh0]

In Australia the rules tend to be much stricter than in Europe or USA and for most historic classes you can only use original components in line with the certificate of description for your specific car and how it was built and raced in period. Replicas are not allowed and the cars must be original cars raced in the period. Certainly no 1800 alloy block twinks in replica 26Rs !

However in a couple of classes based on production cars the regs are slightly different as the car needs to comply with production specifications of the period but does not need to be an actual specific car raced in the period with its own unique certificate of description. My class is group S for production sports cars and is one of these. These classes allow certain limited modifications to the standard production specification.

e.g. The cylinder head must be original but head modifications allow the McCoy style of head conversion to be used.

i.e.
"You modify the cylinder head by removing metal by machining" - intended for allowance of mods to compression ratio and springs and ports and valves but it equally applies to machining off the full Stromberg Manifold.
"You may replace the inlet manifold with one of period style" - intended to allow optional after market manifolds of period style but equally applies to bolting on the McCoy conversion manifold.

cheers
Rohan

[udden18]

Hi,

I can sell you one for about 300 Euro if you are interested.

Regeds Mikael 36/5548
Sweden

[PaulFinch]

Mikael,

Sent you a mail.

Paul

[patrics]

Not the right thread but I was told that alloy blocks are not allowed in CSCC but will allow Kent blocks on cost grounds

Regards
Steve