just something i was pondering yesterday...
if the red top and the ecotec use the same block, would it be possible to find a coscast head, cams, and perhaps pistons, and essentially build a red top out of it?

I'm not going to do it, just wondered if it was possible to put a coscast head on my ecotec

I was lead to believe the ecotec's a lower-compression version of the redtop (XE) design, so the coscast head should fit fairly readily with a cometic gasket.

I can vouch for the ecotec being easy enough to work on - I just got finished with my first rebuild on a 1.6.

The ecotec is a bit more cost-effective than the redtop, though - as redtop parts in decent nick get harder to come by, you might find it cheaper to get, say, a 2.2 ecotec than a set of 2l red top bits.

If you had the cash though, a C20LET might be a better bet, depending what it was going in. Imagine a redtop on TBs with a turbo and I wouldn't have thought you'd be far wrong...

Just my 2p.

i've already got a ecotec i'm more than happy with was just one of those things i was thinking about.

but maybe one day if i'm looking at doing some work on the head (i understood it was the head that made the ecotec more economical) i might consider getting hold of a coscast head, but thats for the future...

[Edited on 24/11/08 by blakep82]

I know what you mean, and I thought about it too. There's no such thing as "job finished" is there?

I've not seen the pistons side-by-side to compare, but I read elsewhere someone suggesting the ecotec bottom-end as an alternative for a redtop, so you may well be on to something...

someone also once told me that touring cars, back in the days of the red top, used to somehow turn the head round so the exhaust ports became the inlet ports and vice versa (don't really know whatelse this involved) and got a lot more power out them

The red top is still used in touring car in the chevrolet....

Not the fastest out there but not bad for an old red top ............................

Jason

yep, they turned the head round, but the inlets were still the inlets.

It was so that the exhaust was then (in a cavalier touring car) at the rear of the engine instead of the front, and the throttle bodies could breathe coool air from the front.

As far as I know the ecotec block is the same as the XE, but then I have a couple of XE blocks if you want one, heads etc too as well come to that!

I'm good for engines at the minute thanks
ah, so thats why they turned them around! someone was telling me about it, but admitted he didn't really know why it was himself.
makes sense though, getting all that lovely cold air in quickly. surely its a lot more work than it sounds though, what with cam shafts and stuff?

I'm fairly sure the Ecotec has different pistons to the C20XE.