New SOHC Heads from Robert Pond

[hafadowg]

The price u quoted is for bare heads?If so,how much to fill w/ valves,springs,rockers,etc?

                                                                                                        mark

[jayb]

The lightweight valves from Ferrea for the SOHC run about $600 for the set.  T&D rocker arms, shafts, and spring clips run another $2000.  Finish off with your choice of springs, titanium retainers, shims, seals, and locks, and that will add another $800 or so to the total.

[jayb]

Billet aluminum caps, the way it is supposed to be.  If Ford had billet aluminum back in the day before CNC, they would have used it instead of cast iron or ductile caps. 

The "easy" way to change the rocker ratio in a SOHC would be to use a smaller diameter rocker shaft, possible on stock head with offset bushings.

Just wondering if anyone has gone to the Flathead/351W firing order yet on the SOHC camshafts?

I looked at doing that a while back, but it requires a pretty expensive cam blank to start with (~$1000 per pair), and then you have to pay for extensive grinding (probably another $1000 per pair).  The billet cams from Comp are available now for around $850 a pair ready to run, so going to the better firing order would be an expensive horsepower-per-dollar proposition.

[e philpott]

on a street type build with the smaller cams .... how much valve relief would be needed with flat tops on the 86cc chamber ??... would you be able to use regular FE flat tops or would you still be stuck with custom pistons with the small cams ??

[jayb]

You would definitely need custom pistons; the edge of the valves on the SOHC are very close to the edge of the chamber.  No way you could get by without the proper valve reliefs.

[e philpott]

the chamber on Ponds cammer looks real simular to the new TM Enterprises Boss 429 head they had at Columbus meet a couple months ago , short of having them side by side ..... what are the chamber CC's in a stock SOHC for comparison ??

[jayb]

Stock SOHC chamber size is 120cc, so getting down to 85cc is a pretty big improvement.  Just as a for instance, on my 519" SOHC the piston dome volume is 39cc, so going to Pond's chamber would allow me to reduce to a 4cc dome and maintain the same compression ratio.  The result would be a lighter piston and a huge improvement in combustion efficiency.  I've seen estimates where a heart shaped chamber is good for up to 80 HP over a hemi chamber in a race application, due to quench and better combustion efficiency, so there is a bunch of power to be had from the Pond heads over a stock type hemi chamber.

[WConley]

Agreed!  The burn should speed up a whole lot, and turbulence will be much improved.  This will be a very neat case study for the benefits of chamber design.  It will probably want a different timing curve, and I imagine it will need a bit less octane for a given C/R.

[jayb]

I'm already thinking about the back to back tests on the dyno, Bill.  I'll get the Pond heads ported to flow the same as the heads I've got, and then just swap heads and pistons, with all else being equal including compression ratio.  Should be an eye opening test...

[WConley]

After the test, do you need the old junk hauled away?   

[jayb]

I'll bet you'd come all the way from California to do it, too...   By the way, did you see on the FE Forum where Roger Gordon referred to the T&D rockers as the "William Conley / Bill Coon rockers"?  Maybe you can get a free set of those too, as long as your name is on them LOL!

[machoneman]

I saw that post from Roger and that wasn't even the dumbest thing he stated in that series of back and forth comments. What a maroon....LOL!

Btw, Hasty may be on to something where a slew of LS heads were mis-cast and unlike most heads of course, the total count of saleable pairs went down a ton.

Caveat emptor! 

[WConley]

Yeah I did the design and stress analysis for the T&D lightweight cammer rockers.  It was a gift to the hobby.  Perhaps Brad at T&D will cut me some slack on a set    Actually I will be getting a set of those when the time is right.

- Bill

[jayb]

Actually, they ought to give you a free set, especially in light of the tests you did on the original ones with all the fancy camera work...

[WConley]

I'm friends with Larry Torres' dentist- the SOHC guy I've mentioned to you.  Maybe we can conspire to get a couple of free sets when Larry's got the gas mask on!