The small bore head was intended for stock MK III minis, hence the chamber similar to a stock 850 or 998 head.  My assumption is that the goals were to increase mileage and reduce emissions and be adaptable to fuel injection, as performance of small bore engines could be considered a non-issue since a large bore engine could be fitted for more power.

a friend of mine has two 8 port elder heads bought back in 2003. The engine worked really well, impressive pulling from low rmp, but the casting was bad and both heads turned "sponge" in some spots and water was getting into the cylinders... We tried get in touch with Elder but no reply yet, anybody knows if he's still on business?

Hello Marcel, yes impressive indeed. This is an area i am super interested in. The elder head always seemed the easiest to me as it uses the stock arrangement on the valves. The weslake head on the other hand seems to have the most potential. I had mine flow tested and even with the wacky doughnut shaped intake seat it flowed 140 cfm at .450 lift the port is quite small for the flow it produced and the airflow bench guy said the flow was very stable throughout the lifts indicating the port was well designed. High port velocity is the way most race heads have gone in recent years. But the exhaust was the reverse with 125 cfm and way oversize for the exhaust to work well on scavenging at least not without some work on valve timing and careful exhaust manifold work. no one with one of these heads has one running yet that i know of. Chuck told me that about 135 bhp was what these heads made back in the day. That was with the mechanical lucas (drizzle) injection. I also ran into a guy that ran these back in the 60's he said the cylinder wall creates a blockage out of the valve and was tricky to get the cam timing right to get them to work. Still very cool overall thanks for the photos. what are your plans for them? Aaron

What is the idea behind the head at the top?
The chambers look like normal small bore shape ( sharp beak ), not 295 sort of shape.... and small valves.
I see it's an 8 port....to take two wEBBERS? 4 su ?

Let me offer a vote of confidence for Cometic MLS (Multi Layer Steel) head gaskets for lowering compression. The first one I installed I had issues with and I questioned the design. To be frank, I still question it; however, empirical evidence suggests it works just fine!

I have used two additional Cometic gaskets thus far, one of which was created at .080 thicker than stock on a fully ported head to get the compression DOWN to 11:1. This gasket has run approx. 32 race hours.

I have also reused a Cometic gasket that Aaron A. opened up with a dremel to work with a 74mm bore and it has now run 40 race hours with no sign of trouble. It's also containing just over 11:1 compression.

I'd just as soon replace it with a 295 casting and sell this one on to someone willing to deal with it. I may be able to find someone who has some more info about the head. There is a guy local to me with an oven and tig machine who welds up hemi heads missing whole corners. This head has some threaded hole issues both rocker and spark plug. The current repairs are of poor quality and will be addressed regardless of how the compression is dealt with. Thanks for your concern.

Steve (CTR) 

When dealing with an irreplaceable piece of cylinder head history, with unknown water jacket dimensions, I would be more tempted to dish the pistons than start honking lumps out of the chambers...

If I might ask, have you had any experence with the 5 port small bore Speedwell heads? The reason I ask is I bought a 997 with one on it. The engine runs fine but the compression is way up there. I have been lucky enough to find 997 O/S pistons for the job. What I'd like to do is send the head off and have new seats installed and the chambers opened up to about 10 to 1. I don't expect it to be cheap but I do want well done.

Thanks for sharing with us. Not often you see one of those at a time.

Steve (CTR)

Edit: I was machining front trumpets last night and when I saw the 3/8s I was thinking that's to much to remove for a street car.

My head is a Weslake design made for BMC just before the Leyland Merger/MK III launch.  It is a small bore head, not for 1300 or S engines.  I think the race and rally 8 port adventures suggested potential in modernizing the A series to go with the modern mini, and this head was the idea they decided to pursue.  I get the sense that the head was built, stuck on a 998, stuck on a dyno; results were mailed off and that was it.  I mean, seriously, it wasn't as though Honda was likely to develop and build a car that improved every flaw the mini had, as so many raging fools at BMC considered it flawless.  I then think that the head sat on that same 998 for thirty odd years in a corner of a workshop.  Then it sat in a friend's shop for a decade and then it flew to Canada on an Airbus a few weeks ago.

Keep in mind I have no documentation for any of this, but my sources are pretty reliable.

I've seen images of surprisingly similar recently cast heads for Morris Minors.  In any case, it shall get some injectiony parts and wires and stuff and go on top of a bespoke 1098 and then it will go on road trips, and anytime it can befuddle Crazy Mike's ridiculous attempts at mini meet autocross handicap schemes, it is lining up.

It was a first for me, and I doubt these three pieces have ever been together in one shop before. Today I had 3 aluMINIum eight port heads in my shop at the same time. Since this was like having a bunch of planets align, I thought I'd share some photos.

First is Mur's smallbore head:

This head is a symetrical valve (ex-in / ex-in) twin plane design. I don't know the history of the design, so maybe Mur can pipe in when he finishes driving all over western Canada!

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The second head is the aluMINIum reproduction of the BMC Works Weslake design head:

This too is a symetrical valve (ex-in / ex-in), but cross flow design. This particular head is based on a cast iron weslake head that I sold on Ebay several years ago. It found its way to Texas where I guess it was cut in half and reverse engineered, then improved, recast and CNC machined with no expense spared. I'm told that only 10 of these were made. Whoever redesigned this thing made several improvements, one of which is the standard 14 mm sparkplug as opposed to the 10 mm from the old BMC iron head.

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The third 8-port is the aluMINIum Elder head from Australia

Like the Weslake, this is a cross flow design, but the valve arrangement is asymetrical (ex-in / in-ex) so it uses the standard A series camshaft. The chamber design is quite different in that it uses a bathtub design rather than the heart shape of the other two. This particular head is still sitting on my dyno engine, which has been mapped for fuel injection, but it's never been in a car. The wires sticking out of the exhaust are thermocouples for exhaust gas temperature. The coilpack sits beside the rocker cover, but my son stole it for one of his buddies cars.