I know, I know, please not another Speedmaster post.

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pittsburghracer

pittsburghracer

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I moved on to the next person on my winter porting list and as I promised I called before I started on them. I always do this to see if they are ready financially and lay out our plan on what’s getting done. He was gracious enough to say go around him right now as he’s not in a hurry for his Speedmaster heads he had drop shipped here. He was however concerned about what condition they were in just in case warranty issues arose. So to give him peace of mind I agreed to go ahead and strip them down and check guide fit, etc. well I’m on short break after checking out the first head so here we go. I numbered everything on this head and before stripping it down now that I can I did a vacuum test. Even though I will be touching up the 2.02 valve job every port on this head passed with flying colors. Word to the wise. For some reason this head has VERY sharp edges. And I mean everywhere. Chamber, valve cover lip, deck surface. Please be careful. It actually cut the wood on my new Harbor Freight cabinet that I use for all head disassembly and assembly. Valve guides were just a touch on the lose side as always which I’ll take over tight Edelbrock guides. Throwing a Ferrea valve in the guide tightens it up that .0005 real quick. Valve seals on any head I disassemble gets replaced. Shims are 4 on some 6 on others just as before. This head as received after checking spring pressures would work well. The short turn has a little lip that would take maybe 8 minutes per head but now I’m nitpicking.

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Like I say about some $20 bourbons I own: "Nice for the Price" :thumbsup:
 
pittsburghracer said:
I sure wish I had a set of these back in the 1970-1980’s. I kicked a lot of azz street racing with junk parts. I can’t imagine what I could have done with a set of these.
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I bought a set a couple years ago. They are setting in the basement. I should get busy with my roller cam 318 block. I have a decent machine shop nearby that also has a dyno. It could be a fun project. I need to look up your flow numbers and see how low lift looks. It's only a teen, no reason to go crazy!
 
Ok guys second head vacuum checked great, guides great, chambers look very nice but will really get checked over on my porting bench at a later date. So far I’m going to say I’ve touched at least 15 sets of these heads. The only bad set was a bare set of a customer and I ate a couple hundred dollars fixing them. Bad unfinished chambers and one valve guide .003 over sized. Lesson learned for me because Speedmaster did nothing about it after a couple calls and several emails. I bought two sets but I bought them loaded. My thinking is the are hand assembled and probably go through a better quality control. For a little over 700.00 loaded I think it’s a smart move. I told you what I would do but I have the tools sitting here. Speedmaster is here to stay and are hitting all the big performance shows across the United States. Over the 3-4 years that I’ve been buying them I’ve noticed small changes for the better. Sorry the pictures aren’t better but I’m not setting these on my grubby porting table right now.

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Looks like I NEED a set of those heads!!
 
PBR - did an amazing job on these Edelbrocks recently ,
They will work well within the perimeters I have to contend with !!!!

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Imagine if Speedmaster released an offset rocker head and rockers for it in their current price bracket, it'd be like $1500 on black friday. A man can dream...
 
Can you show us your vacuum set up and how it works, please ?
 
92b said:
Can you show us your vacuum set up and how it works, please ?
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I made a pretty nice post about it and the YouTube video I found and used to make it. Sure is a nice tool to have and didn’t cost much to make it.
 
Dartswinger70 said:
What is your opinion of Eddy vs Streetmasters?
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I’m sorry to say I would and do buy a Speedmaster head before I would an Edelbrock head. Number one, price. Number two, casting quality. Number three, guide fit. I’ll take a hair lose over a hair tight any day of the week. Number four, chamber around the intake valve. Number five, 10 degree retainers and keepers instead of 7 degree junk. There’s probably more but that’s a start. Ok I thought of another one. Number six. I will still take on a set of bare Speedmaster heads but I won’t ever take on another bare set of Edelbrock heads.
 
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SS Lancer said:
Maybe assembled set would be less work involved ?
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I know at least the valve guides would have to at least have valves in them something I couldn’t do on your heads. There is still more work on the chambers compared to a Speedmaster heads and for the guys running them out of the box the finish can’t even start to compare.
 
The main problem is Vic Edelbrock is dead and even though Thier a USA company quality control has suffered just like the intake issues we were talking about.
 
pittsburghracer said:
I know at least the valve guides would have to at least have valves in them something I couldn’t do on your heads. There is still more work on the chambers compared to a Speedmaster heads and for the guys running them out of the box the finish can’t even start to compare.
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One thing for me on finish is they have to be painted so most imperfections will be covered up kinda like
Tammy Faye Baker did !
 
SS Lancer said:
The main problem is Vic Edelbrock is dead and even though Thier a USA company quality control has suffered just like the intake issues we were talking about.
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I’m really surprised that experience with the Victor340 worked out so well and rather quickly too. Sure there are some bad ones still floating around but they will be weeded out. The head issues could be easily addressed with a few tweets and better quality control. Hopefully it will be
 
SS Lancer said:
One thing for me on finish is they have to be painted so most imperfections will be covered up kinda like
Tammy Faye Baker did !
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I’ll tell you what was very nice on your heads. Almost ever surface had the edge softened and that takes some time.
 
pittsburghracer said:
I’m sorry to say I would and do buy a Speedmaster head before I would an Edelbrock head. Number one, price. Number two, casting quality. Number three, guide fit. I’ll take a hair lose over a hair tight any day of the week. Number four, chamber around the intake valve. Number five, 10 degree retainers and keepers instead of 7 degree junk. There’s probably more but that’s a start. Ok I thought of another one. Number six. I will still take on a set of bare Speedmaster heads but I won’t ever take on another bare set of Edelbrock heads.
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I was very impressed with the set I bought in terms of casting etc. I had my machine shop go over them and they really thought highly of them.
 
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