Small block TrickFlow heads part 1

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I try to post some builds to an extent but I'm not really interested in spending more then a couple of minutes making a post before moving on with my day...now as far as the comments and advice I receive I treat them the same way as I do my friends when they are standing in front of me in my shop...I listen (or read in this case) and for the most part keep moving along with what I set out to do in the first place (although when I'm with my friends I make a jerking off motion while they are giving me their advice)
It also seems to me that the most prolific posters never really show any of their own builds...I often wonder if they even have cars

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pittsburghracer said:
I hear you but you can’t be a cupcake about it either. There is a lot of knowledge on this site with most willing to share info. If someone tells you you won’t see a difference in performance if you trade off your ported Edelbrock heads for a set of TrickFlow heads and you are running a 550 lift cam don’t get upset. I have a fault with my communication skills as I can be abrasive. Arrogance and my work environment for 33 years in the mill made you learn to defend your ground.
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True, true. I get roasted for being abrasive.
It’s only text takin the wrong way….
67autocross said:
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Excellent & LMAO
I also hope to change that share your build thing soon.
 
pittsburghracer said:
Intake flow numbers. Now remember I worked the pushrod part of the pinch and never touched the common wall, roof, or floor. (I will be) speed at the pinch was slower but as I knew it would be still high. I will try to give better details on that tomorrow. Ohhh I did remove that slight ridge I talked about earlier in this post. Cnc always leaves a slight lip.

intake flow numbers

————stock (my bench). Pinch work

.100———-67—————74
.200———132————-133
.300———195————-199
.400———245————-248
.500———280————-283
.600———298————-298
.700———300————-307
.800———300————-309

at .850 lift this port finally went turbulent BUT and this is odd when I backed it off to .800 lift again it immediately calmed down. I find you usually have to drop the depression to calm it. As you can see these were small gains but now we go for it. I forgot to add the exhaust port pictures to see the small mods on the exit so I will add them here this will be dressed up more before it’s done View attachment 1715804343
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Hey Pittsburgh , just want to say thanks man! I know you've been kind of down with a lot of things that you've endured over the last year etc , but you're one of the very best sources of head info on this site. The time you take to explain your work and your tenacity to your craft is a blessing to all of us. Keep up the great work and thanks again !! we're lucky to have you. :thumbsup:
 
K.O. SWINGER said:
Hey Pittsburgh , just want to say thanks man! I know you've been kind of down with a lot of things that you've endured over the last year etc , but you're one of the very best sources of head info on this site. The time you take to explain your work and your tenacity to your craft is a blessing to all of us. Keep up the great work and thanks again !! we're lucky to have you. :thumbsup:
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thank you sir. Yaaa it hasn’t been a good year for me. An issue I’ve been struggling with this year flaired up Sunday after church and my yearly blood work that I get done before seeing my family doctor shows my PSA number jumped. I tried to drop off a urine sample yesterday but he had surgeries scheduled but she did get me in to see him tomorrow afternoon. Pretty hard to sit there porting when it feels like you have to piss every 10 minutes. I want to tear the intake and heads off my 422 on an engine stand and throw this head on to see how close the pushrod is. I’ll see what he says tomorrow.
 
Ok guys I saw my specialist Friday and told him what was going on and he took a urine sample. He
asked me what I thought and I told him I’m almost positive I have an infection. He agreed and instead of a 7 day prescription for an antibiotic he said we are going to a 10 day. He said it’s probably affecting my prostrate and throwing my numbers off. Before I left my urine results were in and their tests showed infection but they wanted to send it off to the hospital for a culture test. I felt good enough yesterday to go to Church. Hospital culture test results came today and shows a bad infection so we were right. I’m scheduled to see him in two weeks. Today I feel like I swallowed a bottle of B12 vitamins. Working outside at 9:30am and I helped my buddy load up a load of scrap I gave him, did some rocker arm, pushrod clearance checking, (next post) cut my grass, and worked on my motorhome parking spot. 6:50pm and I’m still going. Ok on to some issues I found.
 
These tests were done on my 422 that I ran for the last 5 years. It’s a .660 lift solid cam engine.

I have a short section of rocker shaft so it makes this job a little easier but it’s still a pain. I grabbed 2 (3/8) pushrods that I used on this engine and two 1.6 ratio Harland Sharp rockers. Man it looked close to the small radius they (TrickFlow) machined in the valve cover rail. After everything was bolted
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down I tried to rotate the engine and damn they hit. So I removed them and tried 1.5 ratio rockers. Damn hit again so I removed everything and tried my 5/16 pushrods for my new 408. They cleared with both the 1.5 and 1.6 rockers. Man it would have been so easy since you were making a NEW head to move the shaft mounting block back. It would have helped center the rocker on the valve tips. Thank God for Engineers but man oh man. The pushrod with blueing on them are 5/16.
 
Something I want to add is that when I set this head on the dial pins were tight. I cracked a head 40 years ago when I had deck cut on a set of heads and didn’t remove the burr on the dial pin holes. It just takes 20 seconds with a round file to fix it. Remember a few pages back when I said the rocker oiling hole was smaller on the deck because of the burr. Well it’s the same issue. It’s so easy to crack a head if they aren’t seated so make a habit of checking this.
 
That kinda sucks. I was hoping to run 3/8 pushrods. They need to change their info. They claim you can run 3/8.
 
19DUSTER73 said:
That kinda sucks. I was hoping to run 3/8 pushrods. They need to change their info. They claim you can run 3/8.
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All I can say is try it as different rockers may be different. Possibly just a slight touch up needed but better to find out before everything is clean and bolted down.
 
pittsburghracer, I've been a fan of yours for years. Good, honest, reliable information, always. I recently received my TF 190's, and a week ago, my TF single plane intake. My car isn't nearly as serious as yours are, but I'm building my '70 Swinger 340 with good parts for the street, while appearing "stock". I've had some major medical issues, but I'm not quitting. Prayers sent for your recovery. 'Meantime, I'm still following. Racer Brown is making my cam, and I'm watching your rocker recommendations. Jim says get the lift on the cam, not the rockers. Any insight on your experience would be appreciated. From an old Gator in the PNW for 30 years, soon heading home to Northern Florida. Thank You for your years of contributions.
 
pittsburghracer said:
Exhaust flow numbers

————stock————ported
.100—-43—————-43
.200—105—————106
.300—154—————158
.400—181—————193
.500—191—————207
.600—195—————213
.700—198—————217

Port airspeed is quiet, calm, and much faster. .500 lift speed went from 255fps to 330fps.
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Man.... just wow... that's too cool... wish I was closer and able to watch, I'd donate labor just to learn...
 
K.O. SWINGER said:
Hey Pittsburgh , just want to say thanks man! I know you've been kind of down with a lot of things that you've endured over the last year etc , but you're one of the very best sources of head info on this site. The time you take to explain your work and your tenacity to your craft is a blessing to all of us. Keep up the great work and thanks again !! we're lucky to have you. :thumbsup:
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Well Said !!!!!!! Thank You for putting it that way, as all I can say is " wow man...."
 
pittsburghracer said:
These tests were done on my 422 that I ran for the last 5 years. It’s a .660 lift solid cam engine.
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John can you tell if there could be sufficient clearance with a little less cam lift? Have to think that these heads are not necessarily targeted to those who would be running a cam profile with .4"-up lobe lift.

The cam in my iron-head 416" is a .595" lift SFT (achieved with 1.6 rockers) with 5/16" pushrods. IIRC the lobe lift is around .37xx" Might be tight but not like the pics you posted. Presumably roller lifters could be worse since they can be taller. Don't think you'd want to open up those holes too much more towards the outside of the valve cover rail either.

I think most would agree that anything beyond .65"-up cam lift is at the top of solid flat tappet cam range and pretty much into roller cam territory. Are the TF heads a good match for a roller cam/.375" pushrod combo? No idea but seems like they would need some work to get there.
 
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rmchrgr said:
John can you tell if there could be sufficient clearance with a little less cam lift? Have to think that these heads are not necessarily targeted to those who would be running a cam profile with .4"-up lobe lift.

The cam in my iron-head 416" is a .595" lift SFT (achieved with 1.6 rockers) with 5/16" pushrods. IIRC the lobe lift is around .37xx" Might be tight but not like the pics you posted. Presumably roller lifters could be worse since they can be taller. Don't think you'd want to open up those holes too much more towards the outside of the valve cover rail either.

I think most would agree that anything beyond .65"-up cam lift is at the top of solid flat tappet cam range and pretty much into roller cam territory. Are the TF heads a good match for a roller cam/.375" pushrod combo? No idea but seems like they would need some work to get there.
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Not really sure about the smaller cam clearance thoughts. I would be going bigger not smaller when I go to use these. I use valve cover spacers on most of my builds now so I’m ready for and raised runner intake I want to go with. That would also give me more playing room if I did have to grab the grinder.
 
Is there enough room to open the pushrod holes in the heads?
 
LO23M8B said:
Is there enough room to open the pushrod holes in the heads?
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No there isn’t so that’s one of the reasons I bought a new Harbor Freight welder and spool gun. My Lincoln welder didn’t have a spool gun hookup on it.
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pittsburghracer said:
Intake flow numbers. Now remember I worked the pushrod part of the pinch and never touched the common wall, roof, or floor. (I will be) speed at the pinch was slower but as I knew it would be still high. I will try to give better details on that tomorrow. Ohhh I did remove that slight ridge I talked about earlier in this post. Cnc always leaves a slight lip.

intake flow numbers

————stock (my bench). Pinch work

.100———-67—————74
.200———132————-133
.300———195————-199
.400———245————-248
.500———280————-283
.600———298————-298
.700———300————-307
.800———300————-309

at .850 lift this port finally went turbulent BUT and this is odd when I backed it off to .800 lift again it immediately calmed down. I find you usually have to drop the depression to calm it. As you can see these were small gains but now we go for it. I forgot to add the exhaust port pictures to see the small mods on the exit so I will add them here this will be dressed up more before it’s done View attachment 1715804343
Click to expand...
Pay attention to the exh port on the right and how he brings it down at the exit floor.
You do this with all LA 340/360 heads. The only head that you wouldn't but could ...is a 308/magnum exh port. I always see a flow increase doing that. The best flowing exhaust ports on any ported 340 head I've seen in my earlier learning were like that. So about 16 years ago I tried it and celebrated. Lol
 
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