Engine component weights

[tubman]

The other day on another thread, someone asked if there was any advantage of using a Canadian Mercury intake manifold over a regular cast iron manifold other than weight. I've always been interested in the weight of engine components and wondered how much difference there really is. I've done some "Google" searches, but they always seem to bring me back here or to the H.A.M.B., but curiously, nothing I've found has any definitive information. My neighbor at the shop has an electronic hanging scale that is supposed to be quite accurate, so I spent some time this afternoon weighting some parts. here are my results :

Stock Iron 8CM head - 23.5 lbs
Offenhauser finned Aluminum head - 15.0 lbs
Navarro "Universal" dual manifold - 9.0 lbs
Sharp 4 BBL manifold - 12.5 lbs
Stock Iron intake manifold - 23.5 lbs
Stock iron timing cover - 5.5 lbs
Stock Aluminum timing cover - 0.5 lbs

Quite frankly, I thought the differences would be greater. If you remove the stock components from your engine and replace them with aluminum parts, it looks like the total weigh savings is in the neighborhood of 35 pounds, not really much in the whole scheme of things.

These numbers are for an 8BA type engine; I would expect the weight saving for a 59 series to be about the same and for early engines probably a little less. Just for a contrast, replacing the cast iron front timing cover, water pump, and stock intake manifold on the early hemi in my race car with aluminum components saved 105 lbs.

[JSeery]

Sponsored Links (Register now to hide all advertisements)

Very interesting data!