What's the Deal with the buick/Rover head for TA Performance?

I think that yes $3000 +/- sounds like a chunk of coin but considering that Gessler Head Porting charges over $1800 to port your own heads; it might be better to go with TA's if they flow great out of the box.

From Gessler's website: w w w . gesslerheadporting . c o m
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 border=0><TBODY><TR vAlign=top><TD width=624>
Stock Rebuild



</TD><TD width=192>$925.00*



</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>Completely and properly rebuilt to better than original specification. Includes disassembly, degreasing and shot blasting, visual and magnaflux inspection. 3 angle valve seat, heads milled true, valve heights equalized, bolt holes cleaned with tap, assembled, pre-lubricated for startup. Ready for installation.

NEW PARTS include stock size valves, bronze valve guide liners, valve springs, valve locks, intake valve stem seals and expansion plugs.


<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 border=0><TBODY><TR vAlign=top><TD width=624>LEVEL 2 - Bowl Ported</TD><TD width=192>

$1299.00*​

</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>Includes Stock Rebuild plus: Intake and exhaust port bowls are ported and polished to valve seat and intake and exhaust valves are back cut.

The Level 2 heads are recommended for owners that want a cost effective increase of power.


<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 border=0><TBODY><TR vAlign=top><TD width=624>LEVEL 3 - Street Performance</TD><TD width=192>

$1799.00*​

</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>Includes Level 2 plus: Entire intake and exhaust pockets are ported, including modifications to the critical short turn radiuses. Intake port opening is gasket matched. Additional valve unshrouding and combustion chambers are polished.

NEW PARTS include 120 lb. valve springs and Viton intake valve seals.

These heads give you the best bang for your buck. Because intake port velocity is kept very high, these Level 3 heads are highly recommended for heavy cars with minimal gearing.

* Note: All cylinder head assembly prices with core exchange.

OPTIONAL LABOR
Install 8 hardened exhaust seats for unleaded fuel: $145.00
Install 16 larger Valve seats for larger valves (215/300): $300.00​

Repair broken, rusted or stripped bolt thread: $20.00 each


So $1800 + $300 + $145 + extras(tax, misc hole repair, etc) = $2300 to $2400 easy.

I can't really say whether or not this is an "apples to apples" comparison, but if you are even considering the TA heads; that leads me to think that you are NOT doing a standard "stock type" rebuild and you would have to have your heads ported besides. And then (I assume) you're still stuck with valves smaller than the TA heads anyway. o No:

 

First off, it helps to realize that a significant part of the market is made up of street cars, not race cars. This is especially true stateside where we traditionally run bigger engines but the iron block SBB engines are available overseas as well and as foreign builders move past 5 liters of displacement as they are now doing these will become more popular there also. Obviously with these engines weight becomes a primary concern, hence the need for aluminum heads. At the same time breathing becomes even more of an issue. Clearly a 5.7 liter motor with 3.5 liter heads is going to be severely restricted, and even racing heads built for the larger displacement Rover engines are not going to be too much for a warmed over street driven 350 or 340.

As far as the size of the market itself, from post #47:
http://www.v8buick.com/showthread.php?t=156953&page=2&highlight=production+numbers
Estimated production of all Rover variants was about 1 million units, a fair number of which were shipped stateside. So far we have no figures for how much that might cut into the 1M, but it could be as high as 25%, resulting in an export market of something like 750,000 minus those no longer in service.

By contrast, SBB 300 production was about 750,000 units. Some were exported. SBB 340 was about 400,000 units, or about half of the export Rover market, and SBB 350 was a whopping 2.9 Million units, clearly overshadowing all other SBB/Rover production. Oh, and SBB 215 was about 750,000 also some of which were exported.

Take a moment for the significance of those numbers to sink in if you would. Given similar attrition rates, the current market in terms of iron SBB engines is still nearly SIX TIMES the export Rover market. If you include the domestic 215 and Rovers it goes up even more to well over seven times.

Now if you consider that an iron SBB in a light weight car almost HAS to have alloy heads to keep the weight down to within 80 or so lbs of the Rover motor, it should be much more than obvious that the street car market is relatively huge compared to the race car market.

So what heads are available, and at what cost? Assuming Willpower represents the top end of the market at $4000 for bare heads the TA head at $3000+ would seem a bargain. But is it? When you consider the street car market where all out maximum performance is not necessarily needed or wanted there are other options. As noted earlier, RealSteel heads represent a real bargain by comparison, at least overseas, how they compare here would depend on peripheral costs. But take that $3000 and add another thousand for shipping, import duties and VAT and now the $4000 TA heads cost, according to Kevin who lives there, about twice what you can buy the RealSteel heads for, and they come with the RealSteel cast aluminum rocker covers and hardware. In case you don't know, this is no reconditioned Rover head, but a completely proprietary design with many very significant improvements. So at this point the relevant question seems to be, how do the flow rates compare? Regrettably I do not have that information but I'm quite sure there is somebody out there who does. Yet even if the TA head is significantly better in that department, for street use it is much less of an issue and the difference in cost can very easily drive most of that market to the less expensive heads. That's what I meant when I mentioned the need for analysis of the domestic market. Assuming reasonable costs for import of the "other" aluminum heads, the pricing of TA's new heads in the domestic market could very well hand that market to their competitor on a silver platter, at exactly the moment when we began to realize just how large the domestic market could be.

Jim

 

I completely agree. I really do not see the TA Rover head being the best option for the 300/340 or especially the 350. It has been proven time and time again that the 350 heads can flow great with porting. if you want under 550 hp the stock heads ported work fine and if you want more add some nitrous or boost.

Also noteworthy is that the head porting does not have to cost thousands, I have home ported 350 heads to get 398 hp using low compression...

Another person who got economical 350 heads that should support 450 hp NA.

 

True but there are many people who can port the 350 heads to support over 450 hp NA for FAR less. I personally have no problem paying Gessler to port heads because he is one of the best at what he does so do not get me wrong, my point is that for under $1000 you can get a good set of heads done.

 

To be truthful we've never built a 340 and dad said he never had the thought of sticking the heads on a 300/340 cross his mind


we're not talking about putting your heads on a 340.

we're talking about putting your Rover heads on a 350.

after all, if you could save development costs on a Buick 350 specific head, wouldn't that be nice?

i do wonder how this is going to work though. i would think porting designed for 3.5l-5.0l might be a little restrictive for at 5.7L



If we had an intake that would be great because we have 350 blocks and we'll have the new heads,

[Carnac the Magnificent]
i predict that if TA should start a thread requesting a donor 340 intake, poof, verily one shall appear at your doorstep.
[/Carnac the Magnificent]

not that i have a 340 intake myself, mind you. i've just got a pretty good suspicion that somebody, somewhere could be talked out of one. especially if you were just borrowing it. :TU:

 

Sorry you had said 340, and I figured that's what you meant, being it makes the most sense. These heads would be a little restrictive for a 350, only in the sense that they wont flow what aluminum 350 heads would. You can still hit higher numbers with these aluminum heads than you can with irons (290-300ish we're hoping versus 250-270). Also, with the heads only flowing 240 cfm you wont hit 450 hp with that, its not enough air you'll need more around 270 for a solid 450 hp which at that point is some substantial porting.

 

Picture Update! I have a picture of a V6 intake gasket taped to the head so you can see how big the ports will become but I forgot to upload it, I'll have it up tomorrow.

Click Pictures for Larger Image
​

 

Mike
Yiour dad said you guys rotated the valve angles from 10 degrees to 14 degrees and that a 2.02 valve would be able to fit in these heads.. thats an awesome feature

 

13 degrees* Yes that is one of the main things that is setting these heads apart is that by rotating the valve angles from 10 to 13 degrees, it puts the valves on the centerline of the bore so we can stick a bigger valve in and get greater air flow, 2.02 intake and 1.60 exhaust. We'll change the V6 heads eventually to feature this as well. On a side note I believe we're adding the 350 bolt hole pattern so that you can bolt 350 valve covers onto the heads.

 

Those sound like awesome features... I would love to see the flow #'s when the time comes.

 

FYI.... Merlin Heads..













Also:

"minorv8

Posted: Sun Oct 04, 2009 3:13 am Post subject:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sorry, had written the results in the single plane manifold thread. Here they are again:

Merlins were worth 11 hp compared to the previous head. As I feared the power drops quite fast after peaking at 5600 rpm, about 15-20 hp and then levels again. Richening the sec side jetting produced an identical curve, only 10 hp lower on the graph. No matter the trick, the max power was always around 5550 rpm and tailed off past 5600 rpm. So, looks like Performer is indeed at its maximum. Next phase will be another manifold. Best curve was with 65x52 needles, 86 primaries and 95 secondaries i.e. 1404 std spec, 13 deg basic and 30 deg total timing. Most likely more torque is available below 2500-3000 rpm with more advance but there was no point in experimenting given the situation at top end. With my old heads the jetting was 68x57, 86 primaries and 92 secondaries. The CR is down to 9,8:1 with the Merlins compared to the previous 10,4:1.

I have spoken with Charles at Real Steel and he was also surprised at the change. I have also bought a single plane manifold, don´t know when it arrives. Hopefully before the snow comes so I just might be able to visit the rollers again before the car is put back to garage for winter. My manifolds are with 1,5" primaries so mayber there is also something to be gained."



http://www.v8forum.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5509&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

Greg

 

The more I look at these two heads, the more I like the TA ones.

I think there is a big difference in potential.

 

Factory Rover head with a template for an intake gasket over it from a V6 head, our Rover head will be the same size.

 

ummm...wow

 

Out of curiosity. I'd like to see that over a 300\340 iron head. Just as a point of reference.

Greg

 

Yeeaaahhh I think the head'll perform fine. And Greg I dont think we have any iron 300/340 heads around the shop I'll have to ask, I know we had a set of aluminum 300's but I dont know if we shipped them out.

 

Just loved this quote. Sorry Mike, it's just too good not to share:

> "According to one report Mike Sr. (TA) has decided to charge about 3 >grand for the heads."
>
>Disappointing - like throwing cold water on a male dog in heat in the middle >of an SPCA homecoming parade

Jim

 

Hu?.. uzzled:

 

Here's a photo of the aluminum 300 heads, no gasket to lay on them though.

Jim

 

where's that thread that layed all of the Rover style heads ( from 215 to 340 to 4.6L ) out side by side?