Author Topic: My C0AE-D head journey  (Read 4757 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Tommy-T

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 313
    • View Profile
My C0AE-D head journey
« on: October 29, 2020, 12:47:58 AM »
These cylinder heads seem to follow me around. I've never really perused them but I think they're cool and pick them up when I find them for a reasonable price. I ran a pair of them once long ago and got fair performance from them. I've never seen hard data on them so I was excited to see that Brent was going to try some on Junky Junk. When he decided to not use them I had to text him and tell him that he sucked for abandoning the HiPo head. He said that in conversation with Blair Patrick that they decided that they did not flow well and further work done to his C0AE-D heads would be a waste of time and money. Fair enough.
In another conversation with my good pal Ross he suggested that the compact chamber of the "kidney bean" cylinder head was the cause of the lack of flow. This really raised the interest I had in the 60 year old cast iron. I took a pair of C0AE-"big"D cylinder heads to Tim's Porting in Santa Clarita, California. I had Tim flow test a CNC ported pair of Shelby aluminum heads with less than stellar numbers in the past, so I don't think his flow bench is a "happy" one. His shop does mostly LS and Ford 4 valve stuff and he has no particular FE experience. First was to flow the stock head. As you can plainly see Blair and Brent are correct that the flow is dismal.

Tommy-T

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 313
    • View Profile
Re: My C0AE-D head journey
« Reply #1 on: October 29, 2020, 12:54:44 AM »
Next the heads were given a pretty standard "street port" job. They got Alex's Parts Low Riser size 2.09 and 1.65 valves, bowl and short side work and the ports were polished. A street valve job with rather wide seats was done and a 30* back cut was done on the intake valves. They flowed a lot better, but really disappointing for the labor involved.

Tommy-T

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 313
    • View Profile
Re: My C0AE-D head journey
« Reply #2 on: October 29, 2020, 01:07:02 AM »
Beginning to believe that the heads really were as bad as I was told, I took what Ross had told me to heart. I called Tim and told him to unshroud the intake valve all the way over to the spark plug hole. He did a very nice job and they look much like the chamber on a BBM head. This changed the dynamic of the cylinder head totally. He actually flow tested the head twice just to be sure of the numbers.
The chambers are now 67cc. There might be those that say I ruined the HiPo head by changing the chamber shape. Maybe so, but the increase in flow was worth it and it appears the chamber might let me pull some timing out compared to the normal FE "horseshoe" chamber. I'm sure there's more in these cylinder heads with "fancy" valves and valve job, and someone with FE specific porting skills. This exercise was to see what could be done with "blue collar" parts and some labor.

427John

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 343
    • View Profile
Re: My C0AE-D head journey
« Reply #3 on: October 29, 2020, 01:34:58 AM »
I was just reading something about valve shrouding of some modern fast burn chambers that have a shape similar the C0AE-D's,but what I was reading seemed to be implying that it was a good thing,I don't know if it was about high swirl or a quality of airflow versus quantity thing or what.The E6SE 5.0 HO heads had a similar chamber and were also trashed for their poor flow.I would imagine installing 2.09/1.65 valves without unshrouding would be even worse,what width did you have to open up around the valves to improve low?

chilly460

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 686
    • View Profile
Re: My C0AE-D head journey
« Reply #4 on: October 29, 2020, 05:23:26 AM »
That's great info, thanks for providing.  Makes one ponder how this carries over to putting 2.09s or even 2.15s in a standard chamber, may be worth the extra effort to get into the chamber. 

Also goes back to a concept I see all the time where guys will have CJ valves put into standard heads, but with no real porting.  The valve/port/chamber all have to work together, keep chipping away at the bottleneck until the whole chain works well. 

blykins

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4801
    • View Profile
    • Lykins Motorsports
Re: My C0AE-D head journey
« Reply #5 on: October 29, 2020, 05:37:32 AM »
Good job, Mr. Tommy.

That first set of numbers is usually what I get from a CJ head with 3/8" stem Ferrea valves and a good valve job....around the 250 mark.   

When I started working on my C0's, I was using a set of 7mm valves, with some seat blending/bowl work.  They just squeaked out somewhere around 240 cfm.   At that point, knowing I was already behind sorta knocked the wind out of my sails. 

It's a shame that the chambers have to be opened up that far as those heads are really the cat's meow in terms of chamber size for the 352 guys. 

The C6's on JJ right now measure about 63cc and I'm sitting at 10.5:1 with a flat top piston.  Mr. Craine will fix me up in the flow department after the first dyno session is over. 
Brent Lykins
Lykins Motorsports
Custom FE Street, Drag Race, Road Race, and Pulling Truck Engines
Custom Roller & Flat Tappet Camshafts
www.lykinsmotorsports.com
brent@lykinsmotorsports.com
www.customfordcams.com
502-759-1431
Instagram:  brentlykinsmotorsports
YouTube:  Lykins Motorsports

plovett

  • Guest
Re: My C0AE-D head journey
« Reply #6 on: October 29, 2020, 05:47:32 AM »
Those are some really good numbers and the finished chambers look beautiful.

pl

plovett

  • Guest
Re: My C0AE-D head journey
« Reply #7 on: October 29, 2020, 05:49:51 AM »
I'd be curious what a 45 degree seat on the intake would do now.

pl

My427stang

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 3918
    • View Profile
Re: My C0AE-D head journey
« Reply #8 on: October 29, 2020, 06:18:46 AM »
Love it...and thanks for being the guy to take the time and sharing it.  I can't imagine it was cheap or easy.

As far as ruining the chamber for the purists, well, it's 67cc and still smaller than anything we have, but breathes.  I think it would put a serious whoopin' on any original 352 head, especially if fed by a good med riser style intake.

I'd say it'd be a low-mid 500 HP street stroker head now, nice work

---------------------------------
Ross
Bullock's Power Service, LLC
- 70 Fastback Mustang, 489 cid FE, Victor, SEFI, Erson SFT cam, TKO-600 5 speed, 4.11 9 inch.
- 71 F100 shortbed 4x4, 461 cid FE, headers, Victor Pro-flo EFI, Comp Custom HFT cam, 3.50 9 inch

cjshaker

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4449
    • View Profile
Re: My C0AE-D head journey
« Reply #9 on: October 29, 2020, 07:08:59 AM »
Love it...and thanks for being the guy to take the time and sharing it. I can't imagine it was cheap or easy.


And there's the caveat. Paying someone to do that much reworking of a pair of heads would probably get you at least to the purchase price of a set of aftermarket heads that flow better, out of the box.
Doug Smith


'69 R-code Mach 1, 427 MR, 2x4, Jerico, 4.30 Locker
'70 F-350 390
'55 Ford Customline 2dr
'37 Ford Coupe

428kidd

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 415
    • View Profile
Re: My C0AE-D head journey
« Reply #10 on: October 29, 2020, 08:18:26 AM »
Cool Tommy , we talked about this on the phone last we talked. Glad to see the progress and the flow data!

Tommy-T

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 313
    • View Profile
Re: My C0AE-D head journey
« Reply #11 on: October 29, 2020, 11:05:09 AM »
Love it...and thanks for being the guy to take the time and sharing it. I can't imagine it was cheap or easy.


And there's the caveat. Paying someone to do that much reworking of a pair of heads would probably get you at least to the purchase price of a set of aftermarket heads that flow better, out of the box.

That is the truth. I swore off cast iron heads back when the Edelbrock heads first came out. Lately the "cast iron cool" movement seems to have taken hold so I thought it was time to act. The Frankenstein 428 for my Comet will be the home for my C0 heads. The engine build is on the FE Forum.

For Paulie, I meant to say the valve seats are 45* with a 30* back cut on the intakes. BTW, the CJ/Low Riser 2.09 and 1.65 valves are on sale right now at Alex's Parts for $139. The ones that they're selling now have undercut stems and the ones I used do not. 11/32 valves are lighter and have better flow potential, but the guides were good in my heads and I didn't want to mess with that or spend more money.

I have about 1K in these heads, but that's just the heads, valves, and port work.

RJP

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 395
    • View Profile
Re: My C0AE-D head journey
« Reply #12 on: October 29, 2020, 11:10:04 AM »
As an owner of 2 sets of these heads and the car they came on this info is quite interesting and valuable to me if for nothing else bench racing at my point in life. One needs to consider that flow testing was, at best in it's infancy if existent at all in 1959-60. Also to point out that the aluminum 4V manifold that these heads were used with was laid out on Don Frey's kitchen table...So much for Hi-Tech. Even in their untouched form the numbers aren't as bad as they seem on the surface as these heads were on a 352 cubic inch engine, not some big inch "mountain" motor. When all is considered for the era the HP 352/360 didn't do that bad when put up against it's competition. This was FoMoCo's first [and some say feeble] attempt at high performance since mid 1957 but that was with the Y-Block, not an FE. I'll go as far as to say that flow testing is, IMO over rated as the numbers are somewhat squed[sp?] It does not reflect real world port flow in a dynamic running engine. It is static flow, one way and does not account for the opening/closing of the valve, port velocity, reversion, wet/dry flow, provides little info of flow under the cam's lift curve and no accounting for manifold, carburetor size and efficiency. Is flow testing worthless?...No, It provides usable and valuable info for port, bowl, combustion chamber and valve work as a 'before and after' comparison as Tommy's noble efforts have provided. [Thank you, Tommy] Flow testing has it place in the quest for making more power but I don't live and die by the raw flow data that most have when they go to the time and expense of flow testing heads. I will now step out of the line of fire as I know this may have ruffled some feathers.     
« Last Edit: October 29, 2020, 11:13:08 AM by RJP »

mbrunson427

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 914
    • View Profile
Re: My C0AE-D head journey
« Reply #13 on: October 29, 2020, 11:44:13 AM »
Thanks for posting this up. Very interesting.
Mike Brunson
BrunsonPerformance.com

frnkeore

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1128
    • View Profile
Re: My C0AE-D head journey
« Reply #14 on: October 29, 2020, 12:18:48 PM »
My thanks, also, Tommy. The '60 Fords are my favorites. I had a Galaxy, '64 - '73 and I've always remembered HR's first article on the 352/360.
« Last Edit: October 29, 2020, 01:37:52 PM by frnkeore »
Frank