Dr L-88

Got a pair of them in my junk room...........................lots of welding on them, not sure what for. The name CROWER hand stamped into the center of each head. I bought these 40 years ago from and old guy who was a collector of Indy 500 stuff.......................engines, wheels, all sorts of stuff. He said they were part of Crower's Indy 500 effort.................................. ........I didn't even know a Crower car or Crower built Chevy engine ever raced at Indy.

jim lockwood

Rex, what's that hole directly below the divider of the center exhaust ports?

Dr L-88

It's on both heads Jim. Not sure who did it or what it was for, but it's about the size of a 3/8 pipe plug but the threads are different. You're welcome to speculate on what it was for.

jim lockwood

Does it go through to the blue background material or is that an optical illusion? IOW, it doesn't go into the water jacket, does it?

Jim

Dr L-88

Yes, into the water jacket. That "blue background material" is the carpet the head is laying on.

wfortune@snet.net

Wondering what you did with the heads, where was the guy you got them from, was there a car they were with?
I have those heads along with vin number2 for 60.
Car has been off the road since 1973, wondering if there is any correlation between the two.

Dr L-88

Hi Bill,

PM sent.

rfn026

They mystery gets even more mysterious. How many of these heads were produced?

Were they every actually used? I've never seen these heads with valves and valve guides. Interesting.

I do know that Smokey Yunick had a flow bench in his shop in this time period. I have to assume that Crower did as well.

Richard Newton

MikeM

The Crower car won the 1960 race.

https://www.crower.com/media/pdf/53_...0Spotlight.pdf

sub006

Didn't Chevy make a few aluminum small blocks for Jim Hall's Chaparrals? Seems to stick in my mind.

ohiovet

Mike ,
Great article about Crower.
Thanks,
Bruce B

MikeM

You're welcome.

jerry gollnick

My 461 heads on my race car motor have the same holes. i put them there to help with a cooling problem on the center cylinder. I also blocked and filled the head riser passages. Lots of hours spent to get these old lumps to flow and work in a race car.
Also I wonder why they welded the corners of the exhaust ports and did not polish them out?

desertpilgrim

Bruce Crower was a close personal friend of Maurice "Rosey" Rosenberg of Chevrolet, who retired in 1969. At the time of Rosey's death in 1992, he had told me that Bruce was "tinkering" with a "reverse rotation" Buick straight eight for a trip to Bonneville.....

MikeM

A buddy of mine is running a Buick straight eight at Bonnieville. I'll ask him if he knows Bruce.