"You are welcome" said SEARCH with a telling LOOK! :twisted:
After I made my first post, I checked the search engine. The only information available was for putting an 11mm head on a 12mm bottom end. Apparently, you have to add a sleeve to the oil return line, and bore out the head bolt holes and shoulders on the head.
I'm talking about putting a 12mm head on an 11mm bottom end. I think that both are 1.6 (not 1.5), so I shouldn't have to worry about the oil return hole. My real concerns are:
1) The head bolt projection beyond the head. Apparently, the 11mm bolts don't go too far into the block, and are prone to stripping, especially since they don't stretch. I really don't want to have to buy ARP or Raceware studs for a POS motor, nor do I want to drill and re-tap the block to 12mm. The car just ain't worth it, and the head that's currently on there is an aftermarket one with some severely screwed cam journals.
and
2) The larger diameter of the head bolt holes in the head. Since the holes are larger than needed for the 11mm bolts, I'm concerned that the head will slop around when I set the head to the gasket. So, I will have to manually line up the head to the gasket and the block as I have someone else torque the bolts down. Seems like not too much fun.
Given the concerns above, I thought I'd see if anyone had actually DONE it before, since there were/appear to be no threads on the specific topic. As noted above, there are several threads about a) putting an NA head on a TD block and vice versa, b) putting an 11mm head on a 12mm bottom end, or c) putting a hydro head on a mechanical bottom end. Since apparently there were no archived threads that dealt with my exact topic after making my first post and finding no comments, I left the snarky comment.
Topic: 12mm head on 11mm bottom end (Read 2129 times)
