AEC V8

railstaff:
I cant be sure,but looking at the previous picture of half a v8 it appears to have “end to end” cooling,by this I mean the coolant doesn’t pass through the block deck into the heads.Im I right?

No, there are 5 large and several smaller passages between each block deck and head.
There are end connections in each head (and the rear of each bank of the block) which are used to pass the coolant from one side to the other via the external transfer pipes.

There isn’t even a coolant flow diagram contained in the service training slides from the BL course designed to train fitters on the engine. There are plenty of oil flow diagrams, but all you get coolant wise is a slide showing the components.

A good clue to the circulation is in the CM launch article, which basically corresponds with how I perceive it to work…

006F9EFA-71B2-419C-B774-F1CFE432C4A0.jpeg
It’s interesting to note the comment in there on block water passages, because too close spacing of cylinder centres within a block is a noted cause of piston skirt scuffing, and that is another problem that the AEC V8 in all of it’s capacities suffers from. Yet another problem that would not have existed if the block had been just a few centimeters longer.