482" FE Stroker, 582 HP, 581 Torque

[blykins]

Jay, we had a similar experience with the trick flow heads on the dyno. My 465" engine was dyno'd with cast iron heads first, some edelbrock heads, then trick flow. The trick flow heads fell off a cliff at 5900-6000. We knew however that the engine would pull to 6500 based on our previous head testing, so we stayed in it and you can see that the curve comes back around. The cam in my 465" is in the same ball park you're dealing with there, around .610" lift, duration is a bit less, solid roller. We searched around for almost 2 weeks thinking we were running into fuel delivery issues, valve float, that there had to be something going on. Never found a culprit.

We compared dyno data with a local friend that has a 492" FE with trick flow heads in his 69 Fairlane. His dyno curve fell off at 5800 and he figured that's where it gave up. I wish they would have pushed through it on the dyno to see if it behaved in the same nature ours did.

I believe if you talk to Brent/Ross about the Trick Flows they'll tell you cam selection is finicky with the heads.

Our testing was done on an inertia dyno rather than an engine brake dyno, so I believe some of the effects are more dramatic. What I mean is if the testing was done on an engine brake dyno, when it hit that rough patch at 6000, the dyno lets the engine rev up at the rate of 300 rpm/sec anyhow. On this inertia dyno, the engine had to fight through the dip in power production to keep building rpm.

Just throwing out more data here.

Here's a 465 I did with OOTB TFS heads, Tunnel Wedge, and setup for a solid flat tappet:



We were at 7250 rpm and decided to not push it higher, but it certainly didn't drop off or dip. 

Here's a 390 that I did with OOTB TFS heads, hydraulic roller with standard travel Morel lifters:



Only lost 8 hp in 500 rpm on that one with a 4150 carb, but didn't drop off at 6500 with a Dominator LOL

Just trying to find a correlation between the heads and the dips that you guys are seeing.

[Nightmist66]

Good to see the out-of-the-box TFS heads showing similar hp and more torque than the $$$$$ Pro Port stuff.

Do you have a link for your back to back testing?

I don't have any back-to-back testing with TFS vs. Pro Port, but I was referring to Mike Brunson's discussion up above, where he did a back-to-back test of iron heads, Pro Ports, and TFS heads.  The results are up above in his graphs.

No worries, just thought you may have tested some somewhere I missed.  Curious which iteration Mike used, there are quite a few options.

[My427stang]

First, I think that is a great engine for it's purpose and any comments are just bench racing/bs-ing

On the TFS heads, I generally end up with about .015-.030 shim and some swapping of springs to get everything where I like them.  That's 7-14 lbs of seat/open pressure at most, not counting spring variance, so not sure it changes much, but w e always do it.

Additionally,  I think you may just have ran out of cam, using similar grinds, but 30 cid less, we ran the peak off the edge of the graph.  I also tend to run that type of lobe a little later, but again, nothing incredible.  I typically put them at 108 on a high vacuum street stroker, so tiny amounts 

I can't help but think that it could be a glitch or loading function of that style dyno.  However, your airflow measuring seems to show that it did do something different.

It beats me, but I did throw some curves below to show we aren't seeing that drop with TFS heads or Morel standard travel lifters and good lobes.

Also, as you know, it's nearly impossible to compare these builds, especially across at least three dynos but:

- 1st one is a TW, iron heads, and it ran up pretty well with standard travel lifters, 241-ish intake lobe but iron heads, same spring pressures as I do on TFS. 
- Second one is short travel lifters, but stock TFS with more spring, similar cam on 433 cid
- Last one is the mildest of the bunch but has both stock TFS and standard travel, with a cam with the same major intensity, unfortunately we didn't run that one out the back as far, but it was still doing well up top, although there is a little bobble at 6000 

Those three though show decent curves past 6000 with std lifters, std head, then both combined, so it's odd the dramatic drop off you see

I have two going on the Stuska pump this week, neither TFS, but one is 482 inches, 330 cfm heads, a medium riser dual quad and a similar cam, but the next one next month will likely be on a local Superflow.  The third is nowhere near the level of engine you just built, but I'll see what I can find on all three to evaluate Morels a bit more closely

I will say, it is a good thing when we are bantering reasons why a 6000 rpm FE is "only" making 580 HP with mostly off the shelf parts!

[mbrunson427]

The conclusion that I came to for myself was this: Something about the head design doesn't agree with the larger cubic inch combinations and requires more cam. I think if we would have switched the cam out for the TFS heads we could make it work.....but that's not what the test was. We'd have to switch the cam to optimize for every different head and the test would be convoluted.

We have one head left to test and I'll post everything up in a big writeup, but the TFS bugs me because it makes for crappy data. The beginning of the curve looks very promising and it looks like it's going to outrun the two previously tested heads, then at 5900 it chokes. The trajectory shows that it's about to make 640-650hp, the other two heads made peak power between 6000-6100. If it carried out that far it'd be a strong running machine....... Maybe when we're done with this last set of heads we'll try the TFS with a different cam.

One more graph. This is our 465" "dyno mule" engine, white line on a superflow dyno, blue line on this inertia dyno we had access to for testing. We weren't real concerned about the numbers the inertia dyno was producing because what matters is the testing was done back to back on the same dyno. I think if we took this engine back over to a normal dyno we'd find that the TFS numbers are very healthy. Not knocking the heads, they perform great, but I wish the graph didn't look like it does. Makes us look like we don't know what we're doing.


Sorry to hijack your thread Jay! When I saw your data I got the feeling that you were running into the same wall we did and it's frustrating.

[6667fan]

Brent, what would a tighter LSA do to the numbers running up to the same rpms?  Also, what A/F ratio do you like to see at full song? Were you hinting the 12.25-12.5 is too fat?

Thanks

[blykins]

The conclusion that I came to for myself was this: Something about the head design doesn't agree with the larger cubic inch combinations and requires more cam. I think if we would have switched the cam out for the TFS heads we could make it work.....but that's not what the test was. We'd have to switch the cam to optimize for every different head and the test would be convoluted.

We have one head left to test and I'll post everything up in a big writeup, but the TFS bugs me because it makes for crappy data. The beginning of the curve looks very promising and it looks like it's going to outrun the two previously tested heads, then at 5900 it chokes. The trajectory shows that it's about to make 640-650hp, the other two heads made peak power between 6000-6100. If it carried out that far it'd be a strong running machine....... Maybe when we're done with this last set of heads we'll try the TFS with a different cam.

One more graph. This is our 465" "dyno mule" engine, white line on a superflow dyno, blue line on this inertia dyno we had access to for testing. We weren't real concerned about the numbers the inertia dyno was producing because what matters is the testing was done back to back on the same dyno. I think if we took this engine back over to a normal dyno we'd find that the TFS numbers are very healthy. Not knocking the heads, they perform great, but I wish the graph didn't look like it does. Makes us look like we don't know what we're doing.


Sorry to hijack your thread Jay! When I saw your data I got the feeling that you were running into the same wall we did and it's frustrating.

I have dyno'd a few large (496-ish) engines with some ported TFS heads.  It only increases the port volume by about 5cc, but the flow increases by about 25 cfm and the horsepower reflects it. 

It could be that the heads are running out of port volume with the big engines, but I wouldn't expect 5cc to be a game changer and on top of all of that, the engines are peaking at a higher rpm with pretty short cam durations.  A 6000 rpm peak, such as on Jay's engine, with just a 243° @ .050" intake duration says a lot to me. 

What I kinda think it is, is just difference between heads.   I've had Joe Craine port quite a few sets for me and he has made remarks about the heads flowing differently and going turbulent at different lifts.  Even though they are all CNC ported, there could very well be something different between castings.   A turbulent port could cause results like you guys are seeing. 

[blykins]

Brent, what would a tighter LSA do to the numbers running up to the same rpms?  Also, what A/F ratio do you like to see at full song? Were you hinting the 12.25-12.5 is too fat?

Thanks

A tighter LSA would increase overlap.  We were sitting at 72° with this camshaft in Jay's customer's engine.  I don't really see the need to go any higher than that as I've made 650 hp with 72° of overlap and TFS heads. 

I originally started at much higher degrees of overlap and through all the iterations of testing and dyno engines, I have found that the heads can generally work just as well without copious amounts of overlap.  That's good for pump gas street engines that need vacuum.   

The engine I referenced earlier, the 445 that made 620 hp with 10.2:1, Performer RPM, etc., just had 61° of overlap and had 13-14" of vacuum, depending on where we set the idle speed.

I like to see 12.5-13.0 at full song depending on the engine, but normally when an engine dips to the low 12's, high 11's, as Jay referenced, I'd be pulling fuel out.  What stinks is that it would have really been nice to have done a HSAB change to see if he could have leaned it up right at the end, but it's so hard to mess with them on older carbs without screw in bleeds.

[Joe-JDC]

From a Tunnel Wedge users point of view, I found that the Ford TW needs to be balanced in flow front to back.  Your graph on the carbs using different airflow quantities proves my point.  The rear intake ports are more straight and flow quite a bit better than those front ports.  I also found on my own engine that you need a spacer to give the plenum more depth so that the air can turn into the ports easier for higher rpm.  If the carbs were not keyed 1:1 and run progressive, you will have a mismatch in fuel ratios.  As for the TFS CNC heads, ALL of them go turbulent and flow stagnates at lifts varying from .580"-.630" lifts out of the box.  With some tweaking I have seen 364 cfm without making the ports significantly larger in volume, all with stock valves.  With a stockish TW, the flow usually comes in around 365cfm average, with the rear ports near 390 cfm, and with a simple cartridge roll will flow 400 cfm.  With 320-330 cfm heads, the intake needs to flow at least 400 cfm.  Also, did you increase the timing with the 110 fuel to find where the horsepower starts to fall off and back it off a degree or so?  Sometimes those heads like 36-37* depending on the ignition being used.  I just did an intake and OOTB TFS heads for a 447 here locally that used a 220* camshaft and made nearly the same horsepower as this one with a Holley Street Dominator and 750Holley.  I know dynos are different, but this dyno is close to those at EMC at both places in Ohio.  Joe-JDC

[6667fan]

The ability to easily swap out air bleeds is a sweet feature on Quick Fuels, ( and newer Holley’s).
I set a timer once and I had four bleeds swapped in under 5 minutes,(removal to install) on my 2 x 4 set up.

[mbrunson427]

What I kinda think it is, is just difference between heads.   I've had Joe Craine port quite a few sets for me and he has made remarks about the heads flowing differently and going turbulent at different rpms.  Even though they are all CNC ported, there could very well be something different between castings.   A turbulent port could cause results like you guys are seeing.

This makes sense to me. Could be seeing varied results caused by differences in heads. On our flow bench, these TFS heads went turbulent at .590". The port turbulence is what we blamed the power results on.