Holbay Engine Parts

[Neville Bertwistle]

Well I thought I would share some photos of some Holbay bits I managed to obtain recently. This stuff was in a private collection for the best part of 20 years until I finally talked the owner in parting with it.

In amongst a myriad of Ford Motorsport parts was a complete Holbay 2L engine that was built in the early 1980's. It was the personal project of the then Holbay Australia principle in Sydney, and was installed in his own road registered RS2000.

Basic details on the engine are as follows:

Holbay EN40B billet crankshaft
Holbay EN24 rods
Holbay Steel Flywheel
Holbay Dry Sump system
Forged pistons
Nitrogen filled Wills Rings for sealing head to block
Holbay extrernal water pump system
IHI RHB6 Ni Resist Turbo & Wastegate
2x Flow bench modified heads, Holbay valves , springs and one with Holbay roller rockers & cam (120hrs each)
310 Stainless steel custom made exhaust manifold
Modified 40 DCOE Webers (blow through)
Custom intercooler for an RS2000

This thing when screwed together dyno'd out at 408hp @7200 rpm on 28lb boost. All this (dry sump 'n all) was in his RS2000 with Quaife box and Fierra diff, and was apparently a pretty wild ride.

So now to the photos.

Firstly the turbo, intercooler and webers.

[Neville Bertwistle]

And now the system aligned as it was in the car.

[Neville Bertwistle]

Here's one of the heads. This is the roller rocker, roller cam one highlighting how the water outlet was re-routed out of the freeze plugs in the cam valley, throught the Holbay alloy rocker cover, and piped out the top.

[Neville Bertwistle]

Here's a few pics of the ports and combustion chambers. Both heads look like this.

[Neville Bertwistle]

This is the bottom end - Holbay steel 2L crank & rods.

[Neville Bertwistle]

This is the short motor. Note "O" ringed block for the Wills rings and the external water pump system which pumps into the two freeze plugs on the side of the block.

[Neville Bertwistle]

Last one for today.

Roller rocker, dry sump pump & pulleys and Alternator.

[Neville Bertwistle]

Attached is an advert for Holbay from Racing Car News - Oct 1981.

It's a little hard to see but the photo at the top is the engine in these posts on the dyno.

I went with my friend to sydney in late 1983 when he bought the RS2000 with this engine and all the other bits in it. At the time we were also offered a complete Holbay Type 275 16v conversion for the engine. For $8000 it could have been ours, but in 1983 that was an awful lot of money for a couple of 20 somethings who didn't really even understand what we'd just bought. Ah the benefit of hindsight....

[Zakspeed]

Hi Neville,

I had Roy Goodman build my Pinto sprint engine back in the mid eighties, he had made a good name for himself with Formula Fords.

[Pete C]

interesting stuff.
engineering sure has come a long way since then, very backyard technology compared to whats available off the shelf these days!
are you going to rebuild and fit it to any car inparticular or just a collectable?
cheers pete c

[Neville Bertwistle]

Hi Pete,

Yes we've certainly moved on from those days. It's always interesting as you say to see how they overcame the challenges at the time.

I have uses for most of it, although it will never work again as the turbo motor it was originally built as. The bottom end with dry sump etc will go in the tarmac rally car, along with the roller rocker head. The other head will probably end up on one of the Group C cars.

The bit I have no idea what to do with is the turbo and intercooler. May turn the intercooler into a coffee table - it's certainly big enough

[Craig]

Love those water pipes...makes it look like a Fordson Tractor motor..

Just a joke...don't flame me to death! Seriously I love all that old R&D stuff...would like to have been sweeping the floors and making the tea in that workshop.


Craig

[Daniel H]

[Stu]

[Neville Bertwistle]

[Ashley McDermid]

[Neville Bertwistle]

[Paul T]