Inliners International Forums General Discussion Hi Performance Wayne 12 port head

On page 18, the article re. the Iacono dragster shows a head with NO combustion chamber! Were all these heads like this? Many years ago I had a 28 Chevy 4 barrel that had a flat head and pistons that stopped1/2-3/4? short of the deck.I asummed that a combustion chamber in the cylinder was an outdated design. Can someone please enlighten me? Thanks Herb still learning!

Inliner Pat Swanson, whose loving replication of the 12-port Chevy Spalding roadster is featured in the current *Rod & Custom*, is the acknowledged expert on the evolution of 12-port heads. i think we can say that this head in the Iacono/Ganahl dragster is a GMC "Wayne" head designed and manufactured by Harry Warner in the later 1950s. Mr Warner then owned the "Wayne Manufacturing Company" and the rights to the name.

Under the "Historical" link on the Inliners home page we have a series of articles by Herbert Hall on the Wayne Horning and Wayne (Harry Warner) 12-port heads. In the third entry in that series we can see Mr Hall's explication of the supposed "advantages" of Mr Warner's design. Those heads have run fairly well, in the right hands. It occurs to me that they give new meaning to the term "flathead."

God's Peace to you.

d
Inliner #1450

Most diesels I am aware of use that setup, a lot of the newer (and most of the larger ones I have seen) actually have a cavity in the piston for this.

Dear Don;

The Wayne Mfg Co. was re-created in Pentaluma, Ca. a few years back.

It started making the heads again & then stopped as fast as it began.

There many rumors as to why this occured, but the "general" thought is that there were 3 people involved in the Mfg process and they had different views on how to proceed etc.

When (if ever) they will return is anyones guess today.

Happy trails.

PS: The one I bought from Harry in 1962 (off his Roadster) for my 278, had a semi-round chamber.

That "semi-round" chamber was--i believe--the original Wayne Horning design for the Chevrolet head; Harry Warner's GMC head is "flat."

As for Nick Zaillian's attempt to reconstitute the "Wayne Manufacturing Company," that's another subject entirely. We could still hope that something substantive will come of it.

God's Peace to you.

d
Inliner #1450

Dear Don;

It could have been. He had to re-locate some of the headbolts holes, to fit my 261 block.

Bob Toros was across the street then, in Burbank, Ca.

Happy trails.