Wayne Horner came out with the Wayne head. He then sold production to Harry Warner, Dan's dad. I'm sure Dan will jump in here sometime with the correct information. Wayne Horning then went on to produce the Horning head, later made by Bill Fisher (California Bill) and called the Horning-Fisher head.
Go here, it's the whole history. Just click the link at the left for historical. All your questions will be answered. http://inliners.org/
It Street Rodder issue mentioned is Nov '76. The history related so far is correct. The most complete history you can find is at the Inliners website. My father, Wayne Horning and Jim Bolger were tool & die makers at Lockheed, Burbank, during the war. The original company name was Western Metal Development, WMD. Jim dropped out to go on to other pursuits. My Dad and Wayne continued as partners until differences forced a spilt of the company. My Dad kept the Wayne Mfg. name as it was already established. Wayne moved on and created the Horning 12 Port. Under my Dad's direction Wayne Mfg. made 12 port heads for both the GMC and Chevy six engines. He started development on a DOHC head for the GMC 302. This head was never out of prototype and the only copy has been lost to the ages. Hot Rod magazine earlier this year had an article about 7 hot rods on a road trip. One of the cars is a '32 highboy with a 12 port Chevy engine. The head is an original WMD head made for the 216 block. There are still several dry lakes racers using the 12 port heads today; Fergusons, Keith Young, Bill Harris, etc. El Mirage and Bonneville is about the only place you can see the 12 port head being used as it was intended. Thank you for asking, my Sister and I are very proud of our family's involvement in the history of hot rodding. DW
I think he made six Horning heads. They were not really much good as the foundry was not skilled at such a complex casting. I owned two of them. One I bought from Charlie and the other from Don Kincaid. I think Don was the only person to get much running out of one of Charlie's heads. I also believe he and I were the only two ever to run them at all. Mine had one run on the salt in Bob Dalton's 'liner at 202 and torched the deck between two cylinders. I then sold them.
Did they change the design off & on? I've seen a couple different pics of the intake side, one is 90 deg, & the other looks like 45 deg with the spark plug almost under the port instead of beside it
Thanks 28dryer for that bit of info. I'd love to be able hear that full tilt 12 port 261. I bet that's an awesome noise...
Here is the Wayne powered boat that I bought today...Really rough but Wayne only made 96 of these 90 degree converted corvair engines... http://s246.photobucket.com/albums/gg114/poofdirt/Wayne 100/
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