FE Power Cylinder Heads

[Joe-JDC]

Now that exhaust port for stock location is what I have been visualizing all along for the FE.  Your head being taller allows that whereas the stock FE is a compromise.  That looks like a winner for you to sell to the masses, now.  Joe-JDC

[WConley]

Now that exhaust port for stock location is what I have been visualizing all along for the FE.  Your head being taller allows that whereas the stock FE is a compromise.  That looks like a winner for you to sell to the masses, now.  Joe-JDC

Funny how that is!  I've seen so many cases where the development of a new product gets tweaked in an unexpected way, and that's where the money is 

[jayb]

Makes you wonder why they haven't used that port design on all the other aftermarket heads.

I am curious, on the originally designed port, why you didn't go with a D shaped port? That seems to be the 'go-to' design on nearly all performance aftermarket heads. Is it because the port turn radius isn't short enough to benefit from it?

Actually there's a much more pedestrian reason, and that is that I wanted it to be easy to make a smooth transition into the header.  So a round port was the best way to do that.

[Joe-JDC]

"Form follows function", but that round port will be the "hot" new thing if you cast it.  The velocity will be there, and it doesn't take a lot of area to increase the flow exponentially with the round walls.  Joe-JDC

[fekbmax]

In my case I'll be opting for the round port. If I'm dropping that kinda $ on a set of heads, rockers, and intake then I'm gonna want the best possible heads available. 

[Dumpling]

Wonder what the effect on exhaust velocity and flow would be if that round port was rifled or had a spiraling ridge cast in.

[jayb]

So on Monday I was over to the shop that makes the 3D printed cores, going over the single 4 intake design that works with my heads.  I showed them my first machined casting, and they were very impressed.  Then they said, "You should cut it up!"  Now, I had every intention of doing this at some point, because you can learn a lot looking through all the wall thickness and water jacket passages in a sectioned casting.  Somehow, its not always clear on the computer screen how everything is going to come out.  But the head looked so good I just couldn't bring myself to do it.

Then on Wednesday I dropped some things off at my foundry, and they said "Have you cut the casting up yet?"  When I told them no, they basically repeated what the core shop had told me.

So, Wednesday afternoon I bowed to the inevitable, and chucked my first machined cylinder head into the bandsaw   Oh well, there's more to come.  In the meantime, I did learn a few things from the sectioned parts that will point me towards some improvements in the design.  The first picture below shows a couple sections through the intake port:




In the picture above, section on the right, it looks like the water jacket is too close to the outside of the casting.  I'm trying to maintain 1/4" there, this is a little under 0.200" at the thinnest point, so I will pull back the water jacket core a little bit in that area.

In the picture below, in the section on the left towards the bottom of the spark plug relief it is also quite thin, so I'll pull a little out of the water jacket in that area too:




In both of the previous pictures you can see the 3D printed sand layers running along the inside of the port.  Those ridges are why my porting guy thought it would be fruitful from a flow perspective to clean up the whole inside of both ports.  In the picture below, everything looks just about right, so I'm not too worried about these sections, but I could probably sneak the water jacket a little closer to the exhaust port seat, on the short turn side:




Despite the pain of cutting up my firstborn head, I'm glad I did this.  I can spend an hour on the CAD model making the water jacket changes, and then get another round of sand cores printed and pour another head.  The second head is being machined now, with a few minor tweaks to the CNC program.  Boy this is fun 

[plovett]

That way I can do a head comparison test on the dyno.  Another thing I'm really looking forward to...

Oh no.   I was just going to put bigger valves and get a little more porting for my Edelbrock heads, but if your dyno test shows an 80 hp gain, I may have to plunk the cash down. 

paulie

[bsprowl]

Where does that put the spark plug?

[plovett]

I cut my shock towers back with my pedestrian Edelbrock heads, just to make it easier to get to spark plugs and header bolts. 

paulie

[jayb]

Where does that put the spark plug?

They are underneath and slanted off to the side from the exhaust port; look on page 9 of the thread for some pictures of that area.

[cjshaker]

Curious if you made sure you could get a plug socket in that hole? It's hard to tell from pictures, but it looks tight.

As much as I'm sure it hurt, it's neat to see the head cut up, to get a real look at the potential problem/benefit areas inside.

[jayb]

A straight plug boot fits, but an angled one doesn't.  That's one of the minor machining modifications I'm doing on the next head, adding some downward relief to that spark plug hole so that a 45 or 90 degree plug boot will fit.

Edit - Sorry, I didn't answer your question.  Yes, a 5/8" spark plug socket fits.  The pocket is deep though, so the 45 degree and 90 degree plug wire boots are the issue.

[Cyclone Joe]

Jay, I'm not 100% sure what the printer uses for the binder but a lot of time its at type of cyanoacrylate.  A soak for an hour at 300F should kill all binding powers of it.  Although at this point you probably have already engineered a way 

[bsprowl]

My bad, I didn't ask my question clearly. 

Does the spark plug location fit well with your revised combustion chamber when you go to the standard exhaust location?

Bob