Cylinder head dyno shoot out

Any interest in a dyno shoot out of a few popular SBM heads?

  • Yes

    Votes: 119 98.3%

  • No

    Votes: 2 1.7%
  • Total voters
    121
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rmchrgr said:
Wow, not sure how I missed this thread. This is a pretty big investment of work, money and time and NC Engine builder should be commended for taking on such a monumental project. Looking forward to seeing the results.

I didn't read through every post so forgive me if this has come up in the discussion already but I have a question about the intakes being used. Correct me if I'm wrong but almost all of the heads in the test will generally match up with a Victor 340 port size-wise. However, with a 2.5" tall opening the BPE heads create a significant port mismatch with that intake even if it's been gasket matched to a Fel-Pro size opening size of 2.270" x 1.160".

Trust me - I destroyed a perfetcly good Victor intake trying to port match it to those heads because there's physically not enough material to take it out far enough. Even the taller S.V. required a bunch of material to be removed from the top and bottom for the ports to line up decently. Forget about using a regular intake gasket without cutting it either since no OTS gasket exists for that size opening.

Guess what I'm saying is that Rod's heads almost require a ported Super Victor intake since the intake ports are so tall. I'm not sure the other heads in the test come with that same caveat. Just something to keep in mind.

That also does not mean the Victor won't physically work with BPE heads because it will. Don (B3422W5) uses Rod's heads with a regular (though heavily ported) Victor and his car runs pretty good. He acknowledges the port mismatch as less than optimal but he said he's OK with it since it's not a max-effort build up and the regular Victor fits under his hood.

Also, I did see that there was some discussion about iron heads. Would you guys have access to a set of the Indy/RHS-X heads? I have a set myself but they are HEAVY and would cost a fortune to ship back and forth between NC and CT. They don't have roller springs either but they are CNC ported (by IMM) and flow almost 300cfm on the intake side. Just throwing that out there, not sure if it would be useful/practical. I'd bet they would rival the TFs.

Carry on, thanks.
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We're your heads CNC ported, or hand ported by IMM? I didn't know they had a cnc machine.
(I wonder if he has a program for big block mopar heads [Victor maxwedge])
 
33IMP said:
We're your heads CNC ported, or hand ported by IMM? I didn't know they had a cnc machine.
(I wonder if he has a program for big block mopar heads [Victor maxwedge])
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CNC. You'd have to ask Brian how/where they were done. They are really good cylinder heads just heavy.
 
@rmchrgr, I will PM you about the Indy heads. Thanks for the offer. It may not be a fit for what we are doing here, but I would like to learn more. I’m still holding out hope for finding a set of Pittsburghracer heads.

As far as the manifolds, you are correct about the mismatch with the Bloomer heads. The Vic 340 and Super Vic have both been opened up to gasket size. It’s just one of several compromises that will have to be made for this testing. We are working through several others.
 
Earlie A said:
@rmchrgr, I will PM you about the Indy heads. Thanks for the offer. It may not be a fit for what we are doing here, but I would like to learn more. I’m still holding out hope for finding a set of Pittsburghracer heads.

As far as the manifolds, you are correct about the mismatch with the Bloomer heads. The Vic 340 and Super Vic have both been opened up to gasket size. It’s just one of several compromises that will have to be made for this testing. We are working through several others.
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The RHS heads made 500hp and 500lb.ft of torque on the previous iteration of my 416". It ran OK but like every other hopeful engine builder I thought it should have made more power. Frankly, it was not the greatest combination of parts. Nice sized solid cam, (251 @ .050") but the pistons had a huge dish and both the intake and headers were on the small side. It topped out around 5,900 rpm and dropped like a stone at 6,200. Torque curve was pretty flat though.

To be clear, there were some questions about the dyno session itself that never got fully answered. PRH was kind enough to discuss it with me at length and was able to provide some insight about the whole expereince which was very helpful to me at the time and still is. This was several years ago now so water under the bridge and not really worth going into deeply here.

In any event, the BPE intake port literally dwarfs the gasket opening. These are Superformance gaskets but they are the same size as the Fel Pro. 'Scuse the mess on the trimming, the final result turned out neater. Again, these gaskets suck to cut, especially when trying to make long, narrow slices with a tiny little Exacto blade.
IMG_6657 2.jpg


All in the name of horsepower.
 
Here are two pics of the port match on the Super Victor to the BPE heads. Unfortunately if you did port match the S.V. intake to the BPE heads you wouldn't be able to use it with anything else.
IMG_7932.jpg
IMG_7933.jpg
 
Funny, do Rod or Vic or whoever state that it requires a custom ported intake? Seems odd to brag about non offset rockers and not mention they require a custom ported intake.
 
NC Engine Builder said:
Funny, do Rod or Vic or whoever state that it requires a custom ported intake? Seems odd to brag about non offset rockers and not mention they require a custom ported intake.
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I get that but in a way they really can't dictate what the end user does with their product. Obviously the risk of stating that outright will scare some buyers off but realistically those users are probably not who these heads are intended for anyway.

To be honest I think it's a pretty small group - maybe there's a few regular bracket/points racers in it but I'd suspect it's mostly T'N'T or Mopar day ET chaser types that drive on the street 90% of the time. That's me for sure.

I changed my entire combo once I understood these heads required a higher level of commitment to get the most out of them. It would have been pointless to go forward with them without a better foundation. No free lunch.
 
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33IMP said:
We're your heads CNC ported, or hand ported by IMM? I didn't know they had a cnc machine.
(I wonder if he has a program for big block mopar heads [Victor maxwedge])
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Brian had a place over in Rialto area doing cnc back a bit ago. They stopped using them because they shut down the head porting side IIRC.
 
rmchrgr said:
The RHS heads made 500hp and 500lb.ft of torque on the previous iteration of my 416". It ran OK but like every other hopeful engine builder I thought it should have made more power. Frankly, it was not the greatest combination of parts. Nice sized solid cam, (251 @ .050") but the pistons had a huge dish and both the intake and headers were on the small side. It topped out around 5,900 rpm and dropped like a stone at 6,200. Torque curve was pretty flat though.

To be clear, there were some questions about the dyno session itself that never got fully answered. PRH was kind enough to discuss it with me at length and was able to provide some insight about the whole expereince which was very helpful to me at the time and still is. This was several years ago now so water under the bridge and not really worth going into deeply here.

In any event, the BPE intake port literally dwarfs the gasket opening. These are Superformance gaskets but they are the same size as the Fel Pro. 'Scuse the mess on the trimming, the final result turned out neater. Again, these gaskets suck to cut, especially when trying to make long, narrow slices with a tiny little Exacto blade.
View attachment 1716379595

All in the name of horsepower.
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When I wanted to try my welded-up tarantula on my maxwedge head motor, I found it was easier for me to just buy a sheet of gasket material and cut my own intake gaskets from scratch. ( due to the fact that the portmatch on the tm7 was garbage, but I didn't want to go bigger.
 
Getting the machine work rolling along good on the shortblock, got it thermally cleaned, shot blasted, internal surfaces coated with glyptal, bored, plate honed, main tunnel prepped for studs and line honed, lifter bores bushed and honed also. After a quick mockup, we can put it in the surfacer and square cut the decks, and set the pistons to zero deck.

20241212_171920.jpg
 
Do you glyptol all of the stuff you build? I’ve considered it but never have used it.
 
TT5.9mag said:
Do you glyptol all of the stuff you build? I’ve considered it but never have used it.
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I heard something interesting a few weeks ago. I haven’t had the time to verify it yet but I trust the guy who told me.

This guy had a conversation with Kevin from Ishara-Johnson about crank scrapers, windage trays and the like.

He says Kevin told him not to paint or polish the block.

He said Kevin said that the rough surface breaks up air bubble in the oil on the way back to the pan. A smooth surface doesn’t do that.

Thinking about it I think it makes sense. It’s essentially the same thing as a burr finish on a manifold. Agitating the boundary layer to break up bubbles in the oil is akin to wet fuel running down the port getting reatomized.

Something to think about…
 
Newbomb Turk said:
I heard something interesting a few weeks ago. I haven’t had the time to verify it yet but I trust the guy who told me.

This guy had a conversation with Kevin from Ishara-Johnson about crank scrapers, windage trays and the like.

He says Kevin told him not to paint or polish the block.

He said Kevin said that the rough surface breaks up air bubble in the oil on the way back to the pan. A smooth surface doesn’t do that.

Thinking about it I think it makes sense. It’s essentially the same thing as a burr finish on a manifold. Agitating the boundary layer to break up bubbles in the oil is akin to wet fuel running down the port getting reatomized.

Something to think about…
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Definitely food for thought. I’ve never seen or done any testing to quantify the speed of the oil returning to the pan (or the quantity of air in the oil) so it’s something that, at this point just rolls around in my head when I put stuff together.
 
NC Engine Builder said:
Since everyone loves pictures!
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Have you considered filming this whole endeavor? Seems like a perfect platform for a You Tube series. "On this episode of The Great Off-The-Shelf Small Block Mopar Cylinder Head Shootout for the maybe three people that care about it..."

No, it wouldn't be easy on top of what you're doing already however, if you can figure out a way to make it work it could help reach a much wider audience (if that matters) and could be good for business. People love to watch stuff.

If I lived close I would do it. Maybe someone in your area with some experience in that field or at least the drive to do it would be willing to give it a shot.

Just throwing that out there.
 
rmchrgr said:
Have you considered filming this whole endeavor? Seems like a perfect platform for a You Tube series. "On this episode of The Great Off-The-Shelf Small Block Mopar Cylinder Head Shootout for the maybe three people that care about it..."

No, it wouldn't be easy on top of what you're doing already however, if you can figure out a way to make it work it could help reach a much wider audience (if that matters) and could be good for business. People love to watch stuff.

If I lived close I would do it. Maybe someone in your area with some experience in that field or at least the drive to do it would be willing to give it a shot.

Just throwing that out there.
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\
If you are a one or two man show its hard to devote the time to filming and editing and all that. By Thursday I should have my new equipment here and maybe with the new gear I can do more video.

What I can't let it be is another full time job.
 
Newbomb Turk said:
\
If you are a one or two man show its hard to devote the time to filming and editing and all that. By Thursday I should have my new equipment here and maybe with the new gear I can do more video.

What I can't let it be is another full time job.
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Understood of course but I would be remiss if I didn't at least suggest it.

I don't think anyone would expect much. Maybe a brief intro, footage of the dyno runs that everyone is looking for and then perhaps some discussion about the results afterwards would be perfect. The dyno runs themselves are what 10 seconds? The intros would have to be somewhat premeditated but the rest would hopefully fall into place and make sense.

Easier said than done of course but if Tony DeFeo can talk at a phone camera for 20 min...
 
rmchrgr said:
Have you considered filming this whole endeavor? Seems like a perfect platform for a You Tube series. "On this episode of The Great Off-The-Shelf Small Block Mopar Cylinder Head Shootout for the maybe three people that care about it..."

No, it wouldn't be easy on top of what you're doing already however, if you can figure out a way to make it work it could help reach a much wider audience (if that matters) and could be good for business. People love to watch stuff.

If I lived close I would do it. Maybe someone in your area with some experience in that field or at least the drive to do it would be willing to give it a shot.

Just throwing that out there.
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Trust me...... videoing a project bogs it down. Especially when working alone, and you try to not be hard on the viewers eyes or get them sea-sick ..lol
  • Put the camera on the tri-pod. You think you got it right. Test-tape. Review. Like it? Proceed.
  • Say what your going to say. Great! Now take the camera off the tri-pod so you can get it up close and show what your saying.
  • Camera goes back to the tri-pod.
  • Move the tri-pod aiming it closer and with the right tilt to show the process. Review. Like it? Proceed. OOps.. don't like it? Repeat the step.
  • You finally captured what you want. The entire footage and process. Now, go sit on the couch and edit. Then Upload
  • Did you forget something? Rats! Go set back up and show what you forgot. Now, edit that into it.
That being said, I'd like it too if he did :)
 
Well, I'm not great with technology to begin with, so me filming a video would be a fiasco in itself. And I do work alone, so no body around to film anyway. I believe we have a well established YouTube channel that is possibly going to film the dyno pulls, and there should be a good overview and analysis of the results if that all works out.
 
TT5.9mag said:
Do you glyptol all of the stuff you build? I’ve considered it but never have used it.
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Not everything, but most stuff that's for me personally or if its requested by the customer. I have another process I use, it's a spray gun applied product called microslick by cerakote, it is claimed to be a "oil shedding" product, its pretty neat, oil just flows off of it, similar to rainex on a windshield. The main reason I use anything at all, is to prevent any corrosion while they sit.
 
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