The Plymouth Weslake DOHC Motor from the 60's

autoxcuda said

Kenny,

Thank you so much for sharing this info.

To clarify. There were two basic motors?

305 stock based head

320 Westlake head

Did they run/try both in Indy asphalt tracks?

I’ve also seen pics of the Westlake in a USAC sprint car. Did they run the conventional head in those too?

Click to expand...

Thank you!
Somewhere in the photos on this thread is my dad with Pete Hutchison from the MotorTrend magazine article. At first it was ported 340 heads done at KB’s. First test on dyno they achieved around 545 HP if I remember correctly with small percentage of nitro. I was very young at the time, but my older brother said dad was beaming that they were able to get close to 600 with the Westlake Heads.
There is an article in the April 71 issue of HotRod were Keith was offering different packages for different budgets and of course different types of racing.
I have my dad’s build spec sheet on the 318 Indy engine which was really a 320. Dad did the nice gear drive setup for the ignition, water pump, fuel pump and dry sump pump to fit all nicely in the Indy chassis. Everything was driven off the front of engine. Some interesting notes are in my dad’s build sheet.
There’s very little info out there on what was all used in racing. Thanks to Bob Tarozzi I just learned of my dad building the Rossi 305. Obviously KB gets the credit but he had a hell of good team which mostly was my dad’s work with Pete and then Bob Tarozzi. Bob Tarozzi specked it all and dad built it. Many hours running the test engines like a race with wide open throttle was done. The heads used were T/A heads with the rockers raised about a 1/2 inch using Hemi valve springs and harden chrome rocker shafts. I’m not sure on the valves used...maybe Hemi again to fit. An Engle cam was used which was the first choice of most KB engines... although a Racer Brown cam was used in the 320 with Johnson lifters.
I’m happy to finally share this!