Millennium Cylinder Heads

[GaryB1964]

Hello, I was just looking at the upcoming Mathewsons auction and looking at a lovely yellow Stag the write up says it was fitted with Millennium cylinder heads with better cooling water ways
i have tried to look these up however the only reference I could find was on a US website and stated they were made by SOCTFL however I can find no mention of them
Does anyone know if they were any good and or still available
thank you
Gary

[Goldstar]

Quite a history to these Gary. This is the history as far as I know it

They were fitted to 4 or 5 cars at some point in the late 90s/early 2000’s and were made in a partnership between T&M motors in Willenhall, Harlings (who made the castings) and Abinger Hammer motors. The first batch was made before SOCTFL and the Club got involved and were not cast very well so ended up being scrap. 5 pairs were machined and eventually fitted to cars.

The partnership fell apart and that’s when the club got involved, gave money to buy the patterns and then had several castings made of which 10 pairs were good. Those heads still exist (we have them in storage) but have not been machines for various reasons, one of which is the availability of machine shops capable of the operations required at a reasonable cost.

if those heads are one of these 5 pairs, they are not strictly Millenium heads (that name appears to have come about after SOCTFL got involved) but they were made using the same patterns as the Millenium heads so they are, to all intents and purpose, the same.

Paul

[GaryB1964]

Hello Paul
Many thanks for your reply and also for the information as I said I just came across the Stag on the Mathewsons forthcoming auction and as I had never heard of them I thought I would ask the question so thank you for giving a comprehensive answer
kind regards
Gary

[Philip Wardle]

... the write up says it was fitted with Millennium cylinder heads with better cooling water ways ...

Gary, as far as I remember, SOCTFL made some small modifications to the tooling concurrent with repairs to some damage which had arisen around the time the prior partnership fell apart prior to our acquisition. SOCTFL made the acquisition at a substantial discount partly owing to this damage, and this was the financial opportunity which gave rise to the project. The modifications included improved flow in the water jacket, however the changes were fairly minimal overall as we were concious of the need to avoid unintended consequences of changes to the original design.

The heads produced by T&M prior to these modifications did not, to the best of my knowledge, claim to have improved water flow - I certainly don't remember any reference to this when we visited T&M at the time. So on the balance of probability, and based on what the auctioneers are saying, the car in question is likely to have SOCTFL Millenium heads supplied and fitted by Abinger Hammer Motors but the definitive evidence of this would be invoices or service records.

[jbuckl]

Gary, as far as I remember, SOCTFL made some small modifications to the tooling concurrent with repairs to some damage which had arisen around the time the prior partnership fell apart prior to our acquisition. SOCTFL made the acquisition at a substantial discount partly owing to this damage, and this was the financial opportunity which gave rise to the project. The modifications included improved flow in the water jacket, however the changes were fairly minimal overall as we were concious of the need to avoid unintended consequences of changes to the original design.

The heads produced by T&M prior to these modifications did not, to the best of my knowledge, claim to have improved water flow - I certainly don't remember any reference to this when we visited T&M at the time. So on the balance of probability, and based on what the auctioneers are saying, the car in question is likely to have SOCTFL Millenium heads supplied and fitted by Abinger Hammer Motors but the definitive evidence of this would be invoices or service records.

Afaiwa millennium heads had the word millenium cast below the central head stud.

fairly easy to spot.

i zoomed in on the mathewsons video and paused. Couldn’t see the word, but that is not at all conclusive.

[Philip Wardle]

Yes, that would be definite evidence of the heads being SOCTFL ones but can't quite remember whether this feature was introduced as of our first batch of castings or a later batch.

[Philip Wardle]

This is what to look for ...

feature.png

[GaryB1964]

Great thank you for the info