I have several within driven distance that can wet-flow and several that have a flowbench here. Hint, Brodix is in Mena, Aransas. Four hr drive. shoot, I'm only 3 1/2 hrs from Compcams (RHS Cylinder heads) ,Lunati cams, and several other places that have both wet and air- flow! Don't worry on that any way, I'm looking for some junk heads first to do some testing then, I'll do my heads. Like I said its best to do homework first then just go head first and blow a few grand
I'm sorry ypu guys plunged head first without studying your project and spent stupid money and got burned! That's why I look at the port layout and study it, by doing this gets you ahead of your game. I rather pay now on flow and wet flow now then having tp wait to go to school and learn it then having to go buy one. This is nothing but fun for me, anytime you make series,its not fun no more and you become fixed on making money then playing! Gp have fun first and enjoy your job, not be miserable every day...
Gary, I would love to update, thought that's what I was trying to do when we took on the block projects. The 350 SP-3 single plane intake, 350 aluminum heads that were working on and last the new race big block head. One thing I would like to share is these projects take what's called money, then the energy to see it through, correctly. Which as I get older I'm finding it more difficult to find that energy. If you were to ask Sherri what was the worst thing Mike did, me, to TA she very well might tell you the aluminum 455 block. Reason is it almost took us under. Even by time the tooling was finished and finally paid for and we were able to order the blocks. Funny thing was was that it cost more to purchase the castings, main studs, freeze plugs, have oil restrictors made, main caps, cylinder sleeves, machining the block, shipping to us, customer shipping boxes, then make cam bearings, cam cores, head studs, head gaskets etc. Pattern shop let us pay over the duration of tooling production. These other vendors involved with the production and other parts want to be paid in 30 days. Some got strung out a bit. As you can see probably not the best business decision, why did you do it your thinking, because I wanted to. Somewhat selfish I know, especially when it effected others, like family and all who work for TA as well as all our customers. I try very hard but like many here have tried to tell you, I need to satisfy the needs of the many not the needs of the few. I being one of the few. So please understand, I will get the projects finished that I have said I'm working on and hopefully be able to continue to do more. So please have some patience. Sincerely,
Mike we are VERY thankful for your family and the dedication you all have been making toward the Buick community!!! THANK YOU!
Seriously dude?? Got burned?? Ive seen what proof good head porters have out there via their work, havent seen squat from you but talk. I've refrained from saying it, but enough is enough! You talk a d#mn good game, but the proof is in the pudding. And so far we all hear a lot of TALK. Well talk is great, but BACK IT UP. Cool, you made a lot of phone calls. Sweet, you talk to mike Moran. You talk to Mike at TA. That's awesome. Guess what, its all TALK. Ive met and talked to Mike at TA face to face on multiple occasions (as have many others here) and yet im not an expert with one up on him. I've talked to john force on multiple occasions, that doesn't make me a multi-time nhra champion now does it? Seriously, answer that. Right now. Does it make me nhra champion by talking to him? YES OR NO. Because so far your conversations with people who have DONE IT (not just talked about it)/are what you've rested tour laurels on. Its time to put up or shut up. I've been watching your posts for quite a while and so far there is not a one shred of evidence to back up any of your claims to buick heads. The law works on something called HABEUS CORPUS which means "produce the body". As in PROOF. In the words of the greatest rock band in the land, (Rush), SHOW DONT TELL. So get on with it. 90% of us only hear " bla bla bla, mike Moran, bla bla bla, read a book, bla bla bla. GET ON WITH IT!! But please pay attention to this comment: I want every d#mn bit of what youve said to be true! I'm on your side, I want you to be right! But so far, all I have to bank on is some internet blow hard since I've got zero hardened results. I haven't seen you do a Buick head. I haven't seen a single Buick part you own (have you even bought the car in you avatar that you say you want to own??) You've used up enough band width to build a small army, time to put methods to the mayhem. So let's see some Buick heads! Let's see your countless hours of research come to fruition! I have no doubt you've done your homework. I think you are a smart dude. Im totally on your side, so let's do it! But I can only be optimistic for so long, so let's make it happen cap'n!! I've heard some smart guys say light sabers and flying cars are totally doable, but so far all I've got is butter knives and a 98 sentra. So let's do this!! Until then, the vast majority is in agreement you are a keyboard jockey blow hard with no hard proof to back up your claims regarding Buick heads. And I don't want that any more than you do. I dont. I want to say "man, that Gary McGruther is a bad mofo when it comes to heads, I hope he can do mine someday." I want you to be vindicated. You do what you say you can do, and I'll pony up and pay you to do a set for me. I will. But enough is enough. Time to sh*t or get off the pot. You are or you arent, you can or you can't, simple as that. That said, if there is some way I can possibly help you out to achieve this, please let me know and I'll see what I can do. Until then, you don't have a leg to stand on and WE don't want that. So let's get it on!!! Let's do it! Let's make v8buick history!! Sounds good, doesn't it!! But if not, maybe we need to take a good hard look at ourselves, ehhh??(Or maybe just scale back the rhetoric until you have proof of your vast capabilities, your call) I'm with you Gary, but I can't believe in a unicorn forever....
I am friends with and work (albeit part time as a go-for) for one of the top cylinder head and intake builders. We work with Tony Bischoff, Tony DiSomma and Sonny Leonard among others. We do not produce a Buick head at the current time. We may never. I am running T/A heads (ported by Finishline), valve train, intake and headers. This engine originally was built by Mike in '02 to compete in the Car Craft Big Block Shootout. There were parameters set. Even limited to a 750cfm carb. This engine won handily. I bought it in installed in my '67 Skylark, wounded. Entire car was a mess. I sent it to Finishline (Bobb & Geoff are friends) and just did a freshen up. Would have done more, but I gave the previous owner a year to buy it back. Car/suspension was still being dialed in (11.37 @ 117) when I scorched a main. This time I "went a little further". It is my opinion that T/A's head are the best bang for the buck out there. I would buy them again and recommend them. Could they be less expensive? No. The only way that would happen is if everyone ran a Buick and they could be "mass produced". We are at PRI as I type this and I can tell you that if you want "specialty heads" you pay the price. I have seen and know the cost of what is out there. If you think you can build "a better mouse trap", lets see the dead mice. Talk is just that. Dead mice are proof. Go for it, pal. We all want to see your results.
I don't get on much, and rarely post, but after reading through this entire thread for two hours, I feel compelled to. There have been good intentions here and there, and some decent discussion, but not much more than that. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but I really don't appreciate it when other people, who have NO idea, start telling us (my dad) what he should do and doesn't do right. All I have seen thus far is what you have READ. You ported some heads in the past. You've never built a full race Buick engine (if you have and I missed it, sorry, 19 pages gets dry after a while), you never built and designed engine parts. We have. For over 25 years. Your best argument is what you have read and what you have talked to others about. There's nothing wrong with asking around and learning, I'm a college graduate with a Mechanical Engineering degree, I appreciate people educating themselves. Just don't force what you think down others throats and tell them how they are wrong based off of what you have read, going against what they have actually done. You have NO idea what my dad knows, NO idea the people he knows and works with, and NO idea what THEY know. Dad knows and talks with many of the leaders in the automotive industry. We have people working on our projects that have designed the parts that go on to win Indy, NHRA and other championships. I think we're doing ok. 750hp out of an all iron motor? Doable? Maybe, extremely slim, but maybe. The block will hold up for a while, but IT WILL BREAK. We're the ones that pioneered the "band-aids" for the iron block and have tried everything thinkable to make the engines live. What worked the best from trial and error is what we offer to the public; the various girdles and technical information to prep an iron block. Stock heads flowing more than aluminum? No. Not possible in stock form with just porting. Maybe if you got lucky and got a set with thick ports, otherwise you're going to need to repair all of the holes into the water jacket you make when porting. That's what makes our heads so successful; they have the material in the ports to support higher CFM and flow via porting. By the way, the ports in our heads (out of the box) are equivalent or better than the ports in a ported iron head. Why? Because we pulled plugs of fully ported irons and fully ported aluminum heads and implemented those improvements into the casting over time. Intake port shape, valve angle, and combustion chamber design all play a key role in the success of a head, but there are physical limitations due to the deign of the Buick heads and engine, trust us, that's our NUMBER 1 battle with designing new heads or figuring out how to improve the current listing. Could we change things and work around those issues? Of course, then it wouldn't be BUICK anymore, and would require all new parts to support it. There's no way we would sell heads if it came with a note of "By the way, you need to buy a brand new special block, intake, bolts, rockers, etc to work with these heads". People wouldn't buy it and we couldn't afford to make ALL of the items just to support something that is so special and maybe 5 people would buy. Dad started TA to make parts for the Buick racer to give them the same or better parts that Chevy and Ford guys have. However, as time went on, he learned that catering to the average Buick enthusiast/customer is what would, and has, sustained TA Performance, not selling parts strictly for the racer. If we chose that route, I'm sure we wouldn't be here today (the 455 block is a great example, it's very easy to get in over your head, and you have to be able to recover to survive). The Stage 3 and 4 heads were made in the early 90's. They were dad's first attempts at improving the Stage 2 head design. They were better at the time than the Stage 2 head for the following reasons: The Stage 3 head is a Stage 2 head with the intake and exhaust valves moved .030" each away from the center of the cylinder, and raised intake ports. This was to give the air a more direct path into the cylinder, to lessen the turn it has to make in the bowl of the intake port. The combustion chamber was also made smaller so people could shape it how they wanted. The Stage 4 head was a Stage 3 head with the pushrod tubes moved .200" to make the port wider for increased port volume. Both sets of heads required their own special rocker arms, which were very expensive. However, more people bought Stage 2 heads for their street or street/strip car (we hadn't made Stage 1 heads yet) over the 3 and 4's, which were more of a race head. Even back then, the demand for race heads (3 and 4's) were so low that we never produced very many, and when our stock ran out we didn't make more because it wasn't worth the hassle. So, naturally we improved the Stage 2 heads over time (something you claim we haven't/don't do). As time went on, we incorporated the tall Stage 3 intake port into the Stage 1 & 2 head and created the Track Eliminator series. We also learned we could incorporate the 2.25" valve into the Stage 1 & 2 heads, which along with improvements to the intake port, yielded flow results comparable to the Stage 4 heads. That is why a brand new set of Stage 2 heads can (at times) outperform a 3 or 4 head. In fact, we have some improvements we plan to make to the Stage 2 heads when we finish up our current projects. Do we have room for improvement? Sure, everyone does, but I think dad is doing pretty well with his efforts. So you see, discussing information on porting cylinder heads and talking about cylinder head design is a great discussion to have on this fine website. Attacking others (I know you think you aren't, but you are, please stop), and essentially claiming that no one else knows as much as you or are doing things wrong, is not great discussion. It upsets people and pollutes the original intent on the thread. Lets get back to the original purpose and talk information on porting, techniques etc. Lets actually discuss the data behind it, what they did, what it took, so others can read this thread to learn and be able to have something to take away and try it for themselves. P.S. In case you didn't know, the Wagon ran an 8.38 at Bowling Green, with no tuning and suspension issues. With the weight of the car and the time it ran, the engine is probably making around 1,100hp naturally aspirated, and we're way low on compression ratio. Making power after 900 N/A is pretty tough. Rod Hendrickson runs in the 6's and he operates on a lower budget than most racers with a car that fast. It's amazing what Rod and dad have managed to accomplish. Two of the most, if not the most powerful Buick engines in the world. Throw twin turbos on one of our combos and I'm sure you could hit 2,000 hp. Our parts are for the average person and not the racer, huh? That's the current offering and not what we have in the works, so I beg to differ. :3gears:
The Tomaszewski family have done so much for the Buick crowd, that Gary just doesn't understand. Mike and Michael jr shouldn't have to come on here and defend what they have done and what they are doing. You know what, I wasnt a Buick guy previously, but am 100% behind my decision to take the plunge and start my TA motor build. This effort has cost me in excess of 50k and I could've had more power for half the price in a bb chev, but I had faith in TA who are on the other side of the planet from us, to build me an engine that I am so proud to have. It bloody rocks man. Gary, enough is enough man. TA know exactly what they are doing, you ? I'm not so sure. Haven't seen anything yet. Cheers
Thank you, I was just wondering why you haven't consulted with some of the Aftermarket places like Dart, and so on. Knowing that you about went under is a shame, That's why I called you on the cylinder head consulting with Sonny Leonard so he could make things happen at a much cheaper price but a higher quality! The valve train and everything in between. This is why I suggested CFD program and other programs on here, to easy the pain and get the most for the buck. Sincere Gary
I understand, I got off track of the main topic, Now want to continue the topic not my cylinder head build ! Please be patient on my build and I will post what I have done to achieve the numbers.
Thank you, for clarifying what I needed to know, Mike Jr, I posted a post to your dad just a short while ago, I just would like to help if possible, I rather pay for consultant then dive head first and not have the best for my customers that's all, I understand your family owned business is for the average person and have them work their way up, Here is my point ok! Look at Jegs, Summit, and so on, they cater to the average joe and can order as needed for the top end folks. That's where I think your family owned business can really go far, Your family has the knowledge to make beyond what most people think. Your Tomahawk block is a work of art, the current aluminum block is being severally tested by a current world record holder to see if it will hold. As Smokey said, he works for a very reputable place, They are some of the people I would contact for consulting, I do know everything by far! The cast Iron heads I'm doing will not look like anything someone has done on Buick big block Iron heads. Please continue to go forth and bring the best as your family can do. Sincere Gary
Ok people, I have been going off course! I'm hoping to get back on the original topic here and get more information for the average Joe here. When porting the big block Buick, what area do you spend the most time at? ( short turn, Bowl area, and so on.) What is the second area you go from there? Has anyone missed around with the combustion shape? Example, removing the hump above the spark plug? Has anyone attempted to weld up the combustion chamber and reconfigure it? What type of valve face angles have worked the best? Here is my personal question to the equation, the cylinder head bolt that splits the intake ports, is this a major hindrance? The push rod pinch area, How much of a problem in this area does it hurt flow? I noticed the stock Iron heads have a generous short side turn (Long), is there a great improvement in doing anything here? In the cross sectional pictures I posted, I noticed that the top of the port actually goes up not straight like other heads, is this a problem in getting more power out the iron heads? Sincere Gary M.
Wha? You've spent all this time telling everyone how they could of done it better and you don't even know the basic areas of improvement? uzzled:
This thread is for anyone that wants to learn the basic's not full blowin port job! All I have heard is Buick is totally different then anything I have ever done, so prove me wrong now!
