Grey Motor Modifcations

[Effie C]

Hello All
Has any one come across a bible for modifications to the grey motor, every man and his dog seems to have written what to do to a red motor, but I am sure there must be a book / books or a website out there somewhere about grey motors and modifications.

HELP Please

John M

[RET]

John,

I've never seen a published book about hotting up grey motors, although the Cassell Book (often seen on Ebay) does have a bit of information like this.  Where I've seen this sort of stuff is in old issues of Modern Motor, Wheels, Practical Motorist & Motorcyclist and so on.  These old mags are always on Ebay and at swap meets, if you don't have someone in your club that collects them.

Tony "IhadaV8" might be able to give you a tip on this as well.

cheers
RET

[FE_225]

Hi John
I've got a few old mags and stuff about hotting up the grey if you want to grab them and copy them. I too have never come across a grey bible. Best thing is to do is to find an old speedway racer and pick his brains, that's what I did years ago.

Best place to start on the grey is with the head. Open up the restrictive inlet ports, fit larger valves and open up the combustion chamber around the valve heads. Dual valve springs and shave some metal off the deck. Also get all the c/chambers to the same volume, do the same with the inlet ports.
You use to be able to bore them out safely to 149 cubes, I'd be a bit suss about doing that these days due to the rusting around the bores. ACL and JP Pistons still make fat bore pistons for greys.
The rest is pretty basic stuff, good cam, balance everything, good carby and extractor setup, magneto, steel flywheel  etc etc.
For heavy duty use , you could fit main cap strenghteners or "bridges". Also linish and polish all of the crank to stop excess oil sticking to it.
Old racers use to fit fluid filled harmonic balancers off Masey Ferguson tractors. Stock ones only cover a certain range of harmonic vibration, while the fluid filled ones give "blanket coverage "and eliminate all vibrations from the crank, apparently it's bolt on HP.
There's a lot more you can do, but it all comes down to dollars and the availibilty of parts these days.I found with a really worked greymotor,you do get good HP but they are a real pig to drive, the novelty soons wears off. The best grey to drive is a stock one!
Hope this helps a bit
Cheers
Tony

[Effie C]

Thanks RET and Tony

RET is the Cassell book the name of the author?

Tony definitely have to catch up, don't need a pig to drive but just a slightly better than standard unit.

Thanks again for the help

John M

[RET]

The full title is: "The Cassell Book of the Holden ( 1948 - 1958 ) Models 48, FJ, FE and FC" by Sydney F. Page

There's a copy of it on Ebay at the moment: http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2128744851, but at $US 15.50 already, it's a bit pricey sight unseen.

I've got a copy at home.  I'll dig it out and see how much of it is relevant to what you want.  Maybe someone in the ACT club has a copy?  Despite what the seller says on Ebay, this book is not that rare.

cheers
RET