My brother just picked up an oval port A15 and a 5 speed for me off TradeMe. The seller was kind enough to throw in a forklift head that he claimed was superior for building a race motor. This is the first I heard that there may be a difference with the A series industrial motors other than cam, carb, intake and exhaust.
Can anyone shed any light on this?

Also I have heard a rumour that using C22 van bellhousings enables the fitting of L series gearboxes to A series motors. Anyone in NZ heard of that before?

I am still stuck in the US so am unable to check for myself.

i reckon if that was the case with the c22 van bellhousings, there would be stacks and stacks of em around and would be known as a common swap.
but.... ittd still be nice to know if true or not.

i've never heard of a bellhousing to use L series trannies. There is a 63A tranny (the L Series ones ) that came with an A series bellhousing.

but the bellhousing is cast into the tranny. so you'd need that tranny.


Interesting that he claims the forklift head is a good race head. I've never heard that, the only possible reasons are 1, no emissions swirl and 2 most were run on LPG so they might be higher compression, and maybe have a dizzy with a different curve.

they were also intended to run at lower rpms.

we have two of the L series A series gearbocs that we run in sunny's need a big hammer to fit 1200's

and when we need to change them you simple split the gearbox and fit a sss stanza rear not a big challange if you a patient

have a mate who runs a vannet box in his sunny he just used a corrolar frount drive cable shifter and linked it to the side linkages on the van box once again it only really fits in a sunny

The bellhousing can be used I have being meaning to do one for a while but got tied down with other stuff. The head thing is an old story and I have often questioned our forklift mechanics and none of them knew of any valuable differences...the castings may be altered internally but I reckon it is more of a theory that if it's industrial it's heavy duty.

Big V, I'd be interested to hear more about the solution for the gearbox you just mentioned as I have a vanette box adn was comtemplating a linkage setup for my b210 coupe. Probly wont do that though as I scored a 60 series floorshift box the other day and you can apparently swap the selector housing on them

I've heard more about the L series "forklift"heads having more comp and better ports, but never for the A series...

the vannet box that i have seen has two linkages on the side and you move one which gave the left and right of the H pattern and the other gave the forward and back of the H pattern so my mate simply used the shifter out of a early frount drive corrolar which had cable operation he used the corrolar cables and made simple brakets so that they could be linked to the van box
he then ran the cabels from the box forward into the engine bay and then brought them through the fire wall connected them to the corrolar shifter and screwed it to the floor

and it worked

the van gear box has wider gears and biger bearings so not sure about the swap they are also a different length in the gear set

interesting......

stronger gearset perhaps?

isnt hotrod88 a forklift mechanic?? he may be able to answer any questions about the head.