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Summary: Rolls Royce Griffon MK65 60 series engine aircraft Airplane blueprint for the Rolls, Royce, Griffon, MK65, 60, series, engine ... Aviation history and aircraft blueprints/plans. Rolls-Royce Griffon MK65 60 series engine - The Griffon, essentially a modernized Merlin was a 60 degree V-12 with 6.0 inch bores and 6.6-inch stroke giving a 2,239 cubic inch displacement, same parameters as the "R". But this was a totally new engine featuring many design updates. Development started in 1939 and compared with the Merlin development went quite smoothly. Several deviations were made from previous Rolls-Royce V-12 practice. The camshaft and magneto drives were taken from the front offering two advantages. Firstly, the critical timing function of the valves and the ignition would not be left to the mercy of the torsional excursions of the crankshaft. Secondly, the length of the engine was reduced, thus satisfying one of the requirements of the Griffon that it should be capable of retrofitting in existing Merlin powered aircraft.
Griffon Spitfire
In early 1941, the Focke Wulf 190 menace appeared over England for the first time. It created havoc with it's superior performance over anything the British could throw against it at the time. Immediately plans were put in place to shoe horn the Griffon into the Spitfire - this was not an easy task. The finished product was a masterpiece of engineering incorporating the state of the art technology for engine installation at that time. From the firewall forward everything was new. The oil tank was relocated from it's previous position under the engine to the firewall. A fabricated sheet aluminium mount, similar in concept to the P-51, replaced the previous chrome moly tabular mount. Three bumps at the front of the cowl accommodated the valve covers and the single large magneto. Due to the much greater heat rejection requirements of the Griffon, the familiar under wing radiators now grew, having far greater depth for additional radiator capacity.
Spitfire XII's were the first recipient of the Griffon powered by the Mk. III or IV variants with single stage, two speed supercharging. A number of subsequent Spitfires retained Merlin power but towards the end of Spitfire production all were powered by Griffons. Starting with the Spitfire XIV, two-stage, two-speed intercooled, aftercooled superchargers became standard, all of which were Griffon 60 series engines.
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