You know that we love the freaky weirdo parts that were developed for the flathead Ford V8 over the years. From the overhead valve conversions, intake manifolds by the hundreds, and the list goes on. That said, we have never seen or even heard of the awesomness below. You are looking at one of the only pairs left on Earth of a short run and apparently failed experiment by Federal Mogul in the mid/late 1930s. These are Thermo Flow cylinder heads that are made from Bronze Copper alloy. According to the ad and what we have read, about 12 pair were ever made. Garlits has one, a least one has been on a foundational hot rod, and the rest of them? Your guess is as good as ours.
As you can see these heads come with a log type manifold that moved the coolant. This also meant that no coolant actually passed into the head at all. Apparently engineers believed that the head dissipation properties of the alloy would be enough to handle the less than crushing cylinder temps and pressures of a stock 1930s 21 stud flathead.
These heads have been used as the scarred up combustion chambers reveal. We do agree with the seller that the witness marks of pieces of spark plug, valve, and whatever else passed through this thing won’t hamper the ability of a buyer to use the heads.
Did YOU know these existed? We sure as heck did not!
Gotta find the right asbestos/copper gaskets for them.
Nothing new under the sun, but just to remind how good this concept was, Honda won 13 motorcycle racing world championships between 1962 and 1967 with 2, 4, and 6-cylinder engines of which combustion chambers were pressed-in bronze-copper inserts.