Been burning the midnight oil on the CNC machines, trying to get the valve covers ready to show at the Back to the 50s event at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds this weekend. Just finished up the fourth cover, so I thought I would post some pictures. Here is part number 17004, which has two breather holes, one filled with a screw-in cap, and the other with a screw-in breather filter:
Here's my favorite, part number 17005. This one is engraved on the top. I expect to be able to do custom engraving on any of the covers:
Also, some shots of the underside. You can see the ridge around the outside of the cover to hold the gasket in place. Also, the machined area underneath is a breather relief. Around this area are four small tapped holes. There will be a steel baffle plate that screws into the holes and extends out towards the end of the valve cover. The idea is to get the baffle past the last rocker arm before it opens up, to prevent oil splash up in to this area. Also note on this cover that both breather areas are machined, even though only one breather hole is cut into the cover. I'm going to machine all of them this way, even the ones with no holes, so that people can put their own holes in the covers if they want. I expect to be offering them with the screw-in style holes as shown in the photos, or with a 1" machined hole for a push in breather, depending on what my customers want. But there may be other potential openings, so making the breather reliefs and baffle plates available on all the covers will open up all the possibilities:
Here's a couple of shots of the plain cover. This is the one I'd expect to be selling for $259:
Last but not least is the cover shown below. This one took quite a bit of time to machine, and the clear polycarbonate cover took some time to cut also. And, I'm going to have to test this one because I'm not sure the O-ring seal is 100% reliable. I'll get it on the dyno and check it for leaks sometime soon. Hopefully it will be OK, because I think this one is pretty cool:
And here's a shot of all of them together:
Overall I'm pretty happy with these valve covers. There are a couple of issues I have to address with the foundry, in terms of the surface finish, and also the cleanup they do on the covers (one of them showed evidence of a light touch with a sanding wheel, which they probably use to clean up the risers at the bottom of the casting; I have to make sure that the foundry knows I can't accept covers with any sanding marks on the outside surface). Nevertheless, I think those issues can be easily addressed, and am still hopeful I can be starting to deliver these in 8 weeks or so. I'm very curious to see how they will be received at the big car show this weekend...
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