Has there ever been any experimenting with push rod passage shapes?
At one time when I was writing for Super Ford Magazine, Jim Dove and I had a lengthy discussion regarding 'modern' TPs. While mulling over the idea I had discussions with Mose Noland and others who had been involved with both the FE TPs and later, the Trans-Am small block iterations.
Jim was game to do about anything. The Ford guys told me that the idea of reshaping the PR tube, using various protrusions in the runners and other such ideas had produced absolutely nothing of benefit---ON THE INTAKE side. I was advised to pay attention to the exhaust.
The end result was a set of Dove TP heads with the FoMoCo intake lay-out and Dove's 'Type Two' exhaust runners. The exhaust side was changed so radically that the head lost most of the FE identifying characteristics. The runners were raised, spread further apart, and reshaped.
Jim's design had the angle of the exhaust runner re-done to such an extent that the runner opening was markedly 'up', almost pointing at the edge of the hood when bolted to a block in the car. The exhaust port shape had one lower corner filled-in quite significantly.
The heads went on Brother Lon's '67 Mustang/427 SO. In order to have room for the necessary custom headers, we removed the spring towers entirely. Coil-overs and tubular suspension arms out in the wheel-well took over. We also lowered the attachment points for the upper arms significantly and shortened the arms so that the attachment points moved outboard. It was also necessary to redo the steering shaft and replace the (bulky) rag joint with a Borgeson universal.
We worked with Holley to be able to use a pair of their TB EFI units on the factory dual-plane TP manifold. Worked a charm.
The project was spelled-out in a series I wrote for SFM, and the car was featured on the cover.
Lon ultimately sold the car. The new owner lives in New Zealand.
KS