SOHC heads

[preaction]

The pond site states its heads with a CNC clean up are 393@.700 and 270@.700, does anyone know numbers for Bill coons heads ?

[mbrunson427]

http://fepower.net/simplemachinesforum/index.php?topic=293.0

[Pentroof]

...does anyone know numbers for Bill coons heads ?

Does anyone care?

[thatdarncat]

I have a pair of Coon SOHC heads that I bought from Jay, one of the sets that he got in his second batch. I brought them to Brian at R&R Performance in Spring Lake Park Minnesota, the same person Jay uses, since I knew by that time he had some experience working on Jay's heads. At that time Jay had found the Ferrera light weight valves were considerably lighter than what he had been using, so I bought a set of those. Further testing by Jay and Brian found the light weight Ferrera valves are not the best choice for max flow though, but I decided to stick with them anyway. Brian at R&R did the valve job and just a minor cleanup of the port under the valve seat, he did not do any other porting on my set. They are not "as cast", but not too far off. Brian flowed my heads, he also provided the flow figures for my heads but with the Manley valves he and Jay had found flowed much better. One thing this shows is head flow, like everything on a race car, is all about the complete "package" and not just the head casting itself. Jay has covered this topic in the past in one of his SOHC builds, he probably remembers more of the results they found. Here are my flow figures:


Intake

Lift          .100   .200   .300   .400   .500   .600   .700   .800

Ferrera      77    158    225    280    324    345    354    357   

Manley       80    163    239    312    361    381    385    386

Exhaust

Ferrera       53    112    175    208    235    260    280    293

Manley        56    111    174    219    260    285    296    303

[Autoholic]

Does anyone care?

The pursuit of knowledge should be independent of personal hatred for somebody's business practices. Any FE car nut that is also a man of science would care to know how the two SOHC heads compare.

[Joe-JDC]

Knowledge of a crook is a sore subject on the forum owned by the victim of the crooked vendor.  I always was taught that "blood was thicker than water", so I take up for a friend in Jay Brown.  Don't bash his forum, or his work, or his word, and don't bring up a touchy subject to cause more strife.  JMO, Joe-JDC

[TJ]

Knowledge of a crook is a sore subject on the forum owned by the victim of the crooked vendor.  I always was taught that "blood was thicker than water", so I take up for a friend in Jay Brown.  Don't bash his forum, or his work, or his word, and don't bring up a touchy subject to cause more strife.  JMO, Joe-JDC

I don't understand your comment.  I've been around this forum long enough to know Jay had issues with Coon but nobody in this thread has bashed Jay or this forum in any way. 

I like the knowledge shared on these FE forums...particularly Jay's forum, but seems like one has to be careful about kicking over a hornets' nest with a simple question or comment.  Maybe the OP doesn't know about the issues Jay had.  Should he just throw away the SOHC heads he bought because of the bad history?

[Autoholic]

Knowledge of a crook is a sore subject on the forum owned by the victim of the crooked vendor.  I always was taught that "blood was thicker than water", so I take up for a friend in Jay Brown.  Don't bash his forum, or his work, or his word, and don't bring up a touchy subject to cause more strife.  JMO, Joe-JDC

The members on here should be able to talk about engine performance without getting bogged down with a conversation that has nothing to do with engine performance. There are a lot of stories about Bill Coon's shady business practices and the many victims as a result of those business practices. But every time someone talks about a set of Coon SOHC heads, the conversation doesn't need to turn into a bash Bill Coon thread. Jay has a thread that details all of his unfortunate dealings with Bill Coon, and that is a perfect place to keep the opinions and facts about Bill Coon's business practices. I for one am interested in learning more about how the RPM SOHC heads and the Coon SOHC heads (and Dove if they still make them, and Paul Munro if he ever got to it) compare, with regards to engine performance, casting quality, and particular design characteristics. I don't think it's unreasonable to ask that people keep their comments about Bill Coon's business practices out of this thread so that we can focus on what the OP actually asked about.

I appreciate Jay's knowledge and expertise on all things SOHC, and that he has taken up hosting a forum dedicated to the FE engine. He's also a fellow engineer, and I hope he can understand that pursuing knowledge about how various engine parts perform should be done separately from a lynch mob. He's one of the few members on here who has actually owned both RPM and Bill Coon SOHC heads, besides having done an insane amount of FE related engine testing.

In all of this, I am trying to respectful and courteous of Jay. The SOHC is a legendary engine, and anyone interested in the engine is going to come across the Coon heads. It's an incredibly small parts group, there is no way to avoid the Coon heads even after Bill Coon dies or gets murdered by an angry victim. In the long run, it would result in less questions about how the various heads compare if someone like Jay or Berry just went a did a full comparison. When pretty much every question about the various SOHC head options has been looked at for comparison purposes, conversations like this one can be avoided. The forum can then get back to treating Bill Coon like the one-who-shall-not-be-named. Maybe we should start referring to him as Voldemort, I might be the only Harry Potter fan on here though.

[machoneman]

Nah, not Voldemort.

More like Satan incarnate! 

LOL

[cjshaker]

....I might be the only Harry Potter fan on here though.

Well at least you got this part right.

And in case you missed it, Kevin answered the question.

[Autoholic]

Jay, your post is very interesting. It's specific details about both, that would come up in a comparison, that would be worth knowing. How many people out there right now, that would consider buying a set of SOHC heads, know all the details of the various options? Especially if they are new to the engine. It would be nice to read about the design considerations behind the Pond heads, I think that would be new information. You can find a set of Coon heads on eBay pretty much 24/7, what's to stop someone from going through a middle man to get a set of heads? I think it would be interesting to read a comparison that paints a clear picture of which is the best product. It would be easy I'm sure to paint a picture of which company is the honorable one to do business with.

And in a bigger picture, the SOHC community is getting pretty old. I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks about the knowledge that will be lost about this engine when some of the original guys who played with them, are no longer around.

[preaction]

Jay, I didn't know Ponds heads have design features from Blair and Jon how would anyone know that ?

[jayb]

You could call Robert Pond and ask, I suppose.  If I remember correctly, Robert had Blair port a set of prototype heads, and also had Jon Kaase port a set, and then he picked Jon's intake port and Blair's exhaust port to incorporate into the finished design.

[67gt350]

That is really great information about the Pond head. I have wondered between the three available which would be the best choice to start a build. You sure wouldn't want to make a mistake with the cost involved.

[babybolt]

What is the third SOHC head available?