Vauxhall decided it would be cheaper to use a different manufacturer for the heads because it was a cost cutting exercise, that was the reasoning, but because they were getting lots of warranty claims as the GM casting was porous the reverted back to Cosworth, when I worked for Vauxhall you could still get a brand new exchange long block 20xe/c20xe right up into the noughties when the Astra H came out, and it came with the later coscast head
Cracking vid m8 the GM head's go porus that's one of the reasons for the coscast head's they don't ( & i was told that cosworth motersport developed the coscast head's )
Cosworth did originally developed the Cosworth head and also developed the whole 20xe/c20xe engine, The very first early Astra GTE’s engine blocks also had Coscast stamped into the short block aswell as the heads
Looks like the normal evolution of heads, the Peugeot is very similar with the later ones using thinner stems and chamber design, I wait for the valve Dia, good info
Another good video, very interesting hearing about these engines. Just have a question, which year engine is Jim currently running in his Cavalier? Just from looking back at the photo's I took of his car last season, the engine in it at the time didn't have the oil cap on the rocker cover. Cheers
Thanks for sharing your experience @TEC. Did you mention the different combustion chamber on head side? Did you flow bench these and measure the port and valve dimensions?
that's what i love about the super touring era is the screams off the throttle bodies. I remember hearing the volvo S40 on tick over at croft, the bloke was sorting the cars out, had to have hearing defenders on! Looked over at us, and gave the car a blip. Very highly strung stuff back then! plus all these may have practically ran a straight through pipe too!
@@craigconey9971 i live in sunderland, and i have been down croft a few times for the btcc, as well as our other localish circuit, Knockhill. When i saw the volvo and vectras, was back in the late 90s, They had the vectra cup at the time as a support series. Id love to seem the again in action for the sake of old school, closed thing i got was at knockhill, about 10 years ago when 5 of them were on show, 4 went around the circuit and one was just parked up. I believe this was before they came up with the idea of kick starting the super touring racing again. Its a shame things got so out of hand cost wise. BTCC teams must have been so close to F1 wages. Its just a shame there are no real works teams in it anymore now.
Great stuff! looks like a lot more wages were put into the Vectra touring car program. I wonder if they kept the same setup on the current swindon engines that were used in the current BTCC cars. Going back to the vectra era, i think that may have been the start of when the super touring era started to get expensive to build, Like the Ford mondeo been the most expensive touring car built in 2000. That engine was stated to have been heavily reworked down to 2ltre and was like a swiss watch.
The large water channel openings on the inlet side must be matched to the block somehow! How does that work on the reverse head? They had to use production blocks, so something must have been done to the block as well!
No, I have thoroughly studied these engines coolant flows, as can be seen on the Dutch Opel forums in the C20XE section pieces I have written and photo documentation I have made there in the past. But you can also simply look at head gaskets, they only have one or two small holes there per cylinder. The coolant flow normally goes from the pump past the cylinders in the block first, then exits towards the head at that larger square port that he showed was sealed off at the reversed head. Then there is that series of smaller holes, which are in the head gasket that allow a little bit of flow through to the head at each cylinder. Then normally there is the output tube that normally goes to the heater, which flows back to the pump. You can block this off without any issues. Then there is a gallery flowing back towards the pump right behind the thermostat,band as it opens towards the radiator, it closes this shortcut towards the pump off gradually. This is how it works, on the reversed head they have simply added a few more small holes to replace the flow that was blocked off by not having the large square opening.
I believe you either missed or didn’t state the sum / objective of the valve train differences in these two heads. That being valve lift, for a increase in valve curtain area / more flow, by altering the valve train architecture. Additionally, the chamber differences appear to be aimed at treating the valve seat departures as a extension of the throats / valve job / porting, for maintaining laminar flow, minimizing valve shrouding, and increased intake valve discharge coefficient.
The flat part behind the reverse cylinder head is more than likely for the main cooling pipe off of the back of the water pump, as that is where it would run from
Actually now I have been able to do more work with the reverse head. The flat parts is for the gearbox output. As the engines where install behind the axle line.
Fantastic learning about these heads. The difference between them and how some parts of the head on the corners has been machine off. Like the ask if the Swindon head weighs more then the old Cav head?
No they run it on the same side as production. Block, crank etc. They turned the head 180 degrees around so the inlet is facing forward and the exhaust facing towards the cabin. So the timing gear on the reversed heads has to be on the other side of the head to match the gear on the block / crank. Greets
Its a reverse flow head mate bit misleading on the video as he was showing intake to intake and not the orientation of how it sat on the engine. That's why some of the machining he commented on the oil port was backwards.
Vauxhall decided it would be cheaper to use a different manufacturer for the heads because it was a cost cutting exercise, that was the reasoning, but because they were getting lots of warranty claims as the GM casting was porous the reverted back to Cosworth, when I worked for Vauxhall you could still get a brand new exchange long block 20xe/c20xe right up into the noughties when the Astra H came out, and it came with the later coscast head
Fritz Indra would love to see this.
Cracking vid m8 the GM head's go porus that's one of the reasons for the coscast head's they don't
( & i was told that cosworth motersport developed the coscast head's )
Cosworth did originally developed the Cosworth head and also developed the whole 20xe/c20xe engine,
The very first early Astra GTE’s engine blocks also had Coscast stamped into the short block aswell as the heads
Mate u bring the big hits love this stuff. Girl friend already rolling her eyes😂😂😂😎😎😎
Very informative, so glad I found this channel! ;-)
Nice video, rare to see this type of comparison.
I think Spiess might of had a better outcome interms of cyl head though.
Excellent video as always. So interesting to hear the details about these things that as a young C20 fan boy I heard little snippets about
Awesome man, another great video, very Informative and thanks for the explanations.
See you at the next video
Looks like the normal evolution of heads, the Peugeot is very similar with the later ones using thinner stems and chamber design, I wait for the valve Dia, good info
Great video with great informations. Congrats of a XE fan fron Brazil.
Would like to know what diameter they ran afross the splitters.
Ehat would be interesting is to include a spiess cyl head
Another good video, very interesting hearing about these engines. Just have a question, which year engine is Jim currently running in his Cavalier? Just from looking back at the photo's I took of his car last season, the engine in it at the time didn't have the oil cap on the rocker cover. Cheers
@user-wv1pj6wh4h,авто Вектра С с двигателем 2.2 литра желает КПП с растянутой ,6 ступенчатой.😂
Neil brown did wonders with the honda engines 🤛
Thanks for sharing your experience @TEC. Did you mention the different combustion chamber on head side? Did you flow bench these and measure the port and valve dimensions?
No answer?
Them 20 xe screams on carbs but the Swindon's are absolute animals would love a one in a gsi cav
that's what i love about the super touring era is the screams off the throttle bodies. I remember hearing the volvo S40 on tick over at croft, the bloke was sorting the cars out, had to have hearing defenders on! Looked over at us, and gave the car a blip. Very highly strung stuff back then! plus all these may have practically ran a straight through pipe too!
@@procta2343 I was at Croft in august I live not far from there, the vectra was there it was a great day seen some beauty 90s touring cars
@@craigconey9971 i live in sunderland, and i have been down croft a few times for the btcc, as well as our other localish circuit, Knockhill. When i saw the volvo and vectras, was back in the late 90s, They had the vectra cup at the time as a support series. Id love to seem the again in action for the sake of old school, closed thing i got was at knockhill, about 10 years ago when 5 of them were on show, 4 went around the circuit and one was just parked up. I believe this was before they came up with the idea of kick starting the super touring racing again. Its a shame things got so out of hand cost wise. BTCC teams must have been so close to F1 wages. Its just a shame there are no real works teams in it anymore now.
Great stuff! looks like a lot more wages were put into the Vectra touring car program. I wonder if they kept the same setup on the current swindon engines that were used in the current BTCC cars. Going back to the vectra era, i think that may have been the start of when the super touring era started to get expensive to build, Like the Ford mondeo been the most expensive touring car built in 2000. That engine was stated to have been heavily reworked down to 2ltre and was like a swiss watch.
The large water channel openings on the inlet side must be matched to the block somehow! How does that work on the reverse head? They had to use production blocks, so something must have been done to the block as well!
No, I have thoroughly studied these engines coolant flows, as can be seen on the Dutch Opel forums in the C20XE section pieces I have written and photo documentation I have made there in the past. But you can also simply look at head gaskets, they only have one or two small holes there per cylinder. The coolant flow normally goes from the pump past the cylinders in the block first, then exits towards the head at that larger square port that he showed was sealed off at the reversed head. Then there is that series of smaller holes, which are in the head gasket that allow a little bit of flow through to the head at each cylinder. Then normally there is the output tube that normally goes to the heater, which flows back to the pump. You can block this off without any issues. Then there is a gallery flowing back towards the pump right behind the thermostat,band as it opens towards the radiator, it closes this shortcut towards the pump off gradually. This is how it works, on the reversed head they have simply added a few more small holes to replace the flow that was blocked off by not having the large square opening.
Amazing video👏👏 so informative 😊
I believe you either missed or didn’t state the sum / objective of the valve train differences in these two heads. That being valve lift, for a increase in valve curtain area / more flow, by altering the valve train architecture.
Additionally, the chamber differences appear to be aimed at treating the valve seat departures as a extension of the throats / valve job / porting, for maintaining laminar flow, minimizing valve shrouding, and increased intake valve discharge coefficient.
The flat part behind the reverse cylinder head is more than likely for the main cooling pipe off of the back of the water pump, as that is where it would run from
Actually now I have been able to do more work with the reverse head. The flat parts is for the gearbox output. As the engines where install behind the axle line.
Fantastic learning about these heads. The difference between them and how some parts of the head on the corners has been machine off. Like the ask if the Swindon head weighs more then the old Cav head?
Within reason so material removed when ported then all weigh around the same.
La bomba de agua BMW que le adaptaron que modelo es ?
When we get these to flow bench and more information about that?
Soon👍
Good content can't wait👌
Can you please measure the camshafts to find out specs lift duration also cam follower diameter
The valve spring connection of the inner and outer spring is done intentionally to get a damper function due to the different oscillation behavior.
0:19 was there the other day for a core plug or two lol
Very good friends on mine. I am regularly up there messing around with Tom.
Looks like the injector area was welded up ?
Fabulous content ... Big Like 🤩
The c20xe is reversed xu9j4 head with small ports. To the point where you can bolt the xu head to the c20xe block.
Any more info please?
More details
@@mitchiegxxr350 it's an old trick the rally boys used. In period it was a cheap way to a big valve head on an xe
I’m a bit stuck, why would they need to run the timing gear on the opposite side of the engine to the production car?
No they run it on the same side as production.
Block, crank etc.
They turned the head 180 degrees around so the inlet is facing forward and the exhaust facing towards the cabin.
So the timing gear on the reversed heads has to be on the other side of the head to match the gear on the block / crank.
Greets
Its a reverse flow head mate bit misleading on the video as he was showing intake to intake and not the orientation of how it sat on the engine. That's why some of the machining he commented on the oil port was backwards.
Show me Opel Spiess engine
it seems early head's last days. It skimmed too much :)
😅