AY12 Engine
The AY12 is so rare it has been dubbed the Nissan Mystery Motor. It was used in works Datsun Cherry racing cars.
Nissan Part Number 11041-M0820. See the FIA homologation papers for the PE10/A12GX E10 Datsun Cherry.
LTR was planning to create a new head casting: Remake of the Crossflow.
Benefits
Using a stock A12 engine block, here are some benefits of the racing-only A12Y cylinder hear:
- It is crossflow, the inlet and exhaust are on opposite sides of the head.
- Using a hemi cylinder head design, the valves are in better position than in the normal model. Racing trim was reportedly 220 gross horespower
- The is no heat problem with twin carbs, because they are on diffent side than the exhaust manifold.
- The chamber is hemi, it can take more compression without unintended pre-detonation (knocking or pinking/pinging)
- The exhaust side is the same as normal head. The ports are not in same place but one can use standard A12GX exhaust manifold
Swap Notes
- In a right drive, rear drive car, the rear carb is likely to cause interference problems with the brake cylinder. Solution: use Remote brake master
- Left side drivers, however will immediately see the advantages
- The exhaust can quite obviously be made in a more conventional style to allow a lot more room in there
- The induction on this one precludes the use of a conventional distributor. One could use a right angle drive to lay the distributor down alongside the block, but it makes it hard to service.
- In RHD, the carbs in the picture are causing a problem with the routing of the clutch cable. Again, LHD cars will have no problem
The head was originally designed for a transversely mounted engine in the Cherry range of cars & some of the clearance problems simply did not arise because of this transverse mounting.
The cure for some of these problems might just be a custom EFI induction with a cramk angle sensor made from a modified distributor & let the computor sort out the spark problem. Even a simple Pertronix conversion would very likely serve this purpose quite well for many aftermarket computers. Just make a flat[ish] cover for the distributor to replace the distributor cap, & run two coils in a wasted spark configuration.