Did I understand right? The AZ12 was never actually produced, unlike the LZ engines used in Pacific racing.

D, didnt i give you the phone number of a guy putting e-series heads on a-series?

you never rang him?

Probably not going ahead now but if id does by some
way of fortune to the dedicated dude who started it..
I think I will put my hands up for an ay head now :)
Itll be a blast to have such an item and also considering
an oval port head is starting to fetch high end prices and
are so hard to come by these days.
Speedway has definitely changed the datsun market.

D I've talked to one of the people who engineered an A-series block with E -Series Head: What i do remember is that they built up the water a passages on the back of the block so they mated up with the head, also the timing cover was modded for the belt drive to keep oil splashing out obviously. The one aspect that we don't always talk about is as far as the USA modded motors they were in single seat sports racers which have room for the rearward facing distributors or crank fire ignition. I'll try and email to see if there are any engineering drawings to be had.

Now as far as AY/AZ, boy a twin cam head would be the thing to have but as mentioned our cars are lower down the food chain.................for the bucks to have twin cam heads made you could stick in a Cosworth BDA or FWA etc.

Tom

If someone could get in touch with the person who bought the e15/a14 hybrid on ebay recently for biscuits, we could all know how to use an e15et head on an a series before its too late
as all the e15et heads are being trashed and re-used by exa owners as they are rare.
Although not as good as the AY, its a least possible.

The other choice is we get Simon to make kits for the bike head he is using
but Honda bike heads are not cheap and neither is the work involved.

I think that has died in the arse.

I reckon that photo of the head with the rocker off is from Alan Thomas (is that his name? Pommie bloke who owns an AY12).

I sure as hell hope so.

The last I heard he had suffered a couple of setbacks due to shrinkage of the casting & a couple of other problems, but he was continuing at his own expense.

I hope that he is successfull as my hand is still in the air for one.

I wonder what an A12 sounds like at 12,000 rpm. [just before the bang]

so those ay heads are still going ahead dodgeman??

In an attempt to condense some more info that has been seen before, into one fresh thread, here is my modest contribution.
As always, click on the images for a larger view.

This, clearly, is an original AY engine. With reference to the large distributor, it will be noted that it serves eight plugs, so these engines used two plugs per cylinder.
The original design & prototype head [& engine] used only one plug per cylinder but production[?] heads used two.



















This well known & over used image shows an AY in a rear drive car. Note that it is using a 'standard' competition oil pump. I suspect that the pump in the previous illustration uses a special cover on the comp. pump to allow use in a front drive car.
















As can be seen from this image, the studs that secure the rocker cover, also secure the rocker pedestals.
There are four unidentified objects along the aproximate centerline of this head & I speculate that these are the four additional spark plugs that these engines used.
The new production heads that are being developed will revert to the original single plug design.


























As for the AZ engine, I suspect that it never got beyond the design proposal stage as we have never seen reference to it anywhere else but it would be wonderful if one or more were actually made.
I wonder of they used a short cam section in the block to drive the oil pump & distributor, & I wonder what the drive to the overhead cams looked like.

EDIT
The AZ also seems to be a 'dry sump' design so I wonder how the scavenge pump was to be driven & what is the object depicted in the position where the distributor would normally go.

I'm pretty sure these were specific to the cherry's wombat. Especially going by the format of the extractors.

Ian this is excellent, I might get that page translated by one of my uni mates. I'd take that AZ any day over the AY. I had heard of another DOHC engine that had a very tall head but I had never come across concrete information on it. I wonder if it would fit under the bonnet? I suppose you'd drop the mounts.

Also looks like the AY12 ran an electric pump only.

You have also helped me establish what on earth my A series oil pump came off and it looks like is is the very same pump that is hanging off the AY12 engine. Brilliant!






You have to have a chuckle at the enormous dizzie.