I was looking to see what I had for old head porting pictures but I could not find much without a lot of digging, but I did find an interesting photo for your amusement. Back in the day, I decided that I was going to create my own stage two heads by milling off the external portion of the factory Buick exhaust ports. This opened all kinds of new challenges requiring a large aluminum plate to try to restore so structural integrity to the head etc. Anyhoo. If you look at the picture you will see the "experimental" stage IIs off to the right of some early Aluminum Stage II from T/A. If I find more close up pictures, I will post them.
Here are some pics: http://www.v8buick.com/showthread.php?t=138064&highlight=head+porting http://www.v8buick.com/showthread.php?t=136575&highlight=head+porting http://www.v8buick.com/showthread.php?t=138110&highlight=head+porting
Sean and Ponch Those look pretty good! Thanks for the sideways diagram of the head, that makes me feel alot more comfortable on what I did to the guides. Mart did some good work! It inspires me to go the extra 15 miles on the heads and really try and make them nice. And actually Sean, your old posting of the copied magazine was part of my reading as well, thanks agian for that. I have ordered some sandpaper bits to help smooth things out, once I smooth out a bowl I will post some before and after pics. It is sure to be a good time. I mentioned before that I was going to replace my valves with a set of S/S from TA, and after seeing Ponch's valves all cleaned up got me thinking if it is really necessary. Any one out there have experience with either of them? Am I shooting to high with S/S or should I recondition the old ones. The car will be mainly street drivin and I may do a time or 8 at the track just to see what she really has. Thanks agian to everyone who is helping me out with this, it really is reassuring to have a site like this with everyones experience coming together to help out a new-jack like myself. :TU:
Just some info for you. The heads from the "head porting article" used stock sized valves and were put on a well built 350 that made 398 hp... Another engine with the same specs, cam ect, was built with the oversized valves and it made 450 hp. Another FYI, if you buy Jefferson's book there are better quality photos of the porting article in there. His engine was the one that made the 398 hp.. Also lots of usefull information: http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/BUIC...Motors_Manuals_Literature&hash=item27b6bc8b84
Stainless Valves are for the hard core racer. Save your cash for something else. Once you put them in you won't know the differernce and nobody else will either, as in 22" wheels :error: . If you think you need new valves just get a set of replacements from TA. Or do what I did to mine, Clean 'em up. It's not that hard to do. Drill press, sand paper and the ole shop vac set up just right. If you do them after you've done the heads, you'll know better on how to handle your tools and do a good job on the valves. You can use a small grinder to start and get the tuff stuff off first. I finished mine off with some fine sandpaper and a few drops of oil. Some polishing compound and lookit 'em shine. Go to it man!!:beers2: PONCH
This depends on what you have. If you have a stock short block with no money in it (and you don't care too much about it). Go budget and keep your money. If you have an expensive short block, or you know it will be expensive to replace it, get good valves and hardened keepers. If you are running a mild cam (around .480 lift or less) and you are limiting your RPM to an occasional trip to 5500RPM, then you should be okay. If you start running high lift and high spring pressures and/or regular trips to 6,000+RPM, you would do well to get stainless valves and hardened keepers. It is not fun to feed your pistons valves. That is what can happen in high spring pressure, high RPM environments to factory 2 piece valves. They can either pull the valve right through the retainer or you can pop the head off of the valves like a dandelion head. Fun fun fun.
I suppose there is a story to that? Sounds like you have been there before.. Ive been doing a bit of work to the block as well, removing all the flashing, oil mods ect.. The internals are going to be 10.1 with a 310 cam a double roller and a nice journey to the machine shop. I also have a set of double springs from TA as well, the cam is .499 lift with a 1.5 rocker (that I plan on keeping) its just one of those things where $225 in the grand plan doesn't seem like to much, but then again that same $$ and some elbow grease can go towards my 3.42's...hmmmmmmmm.. I shoulda taken up playing checkers...
Lot's of stories actually. One of my buddies back in the racing days had a machine shop. Almost all of his customers were racers. So, I got to see a lot of post carnage pieces and parts. I get the impression you are building a fresh short block and not doing some heads for an old used motor. If I were investing in a short block, I would buy some good quality stainless one piece valves and hardened valve locks for my heads. I would consider it insurance.
You are correct, I am building this thing from the block up. You sold me on the stainless valves, it gives me a warm fuzzy feeling.. but I am going to try and recondition my old ones for the fun of it :beers2: 3.42s can wait till the weather changes and I actually have a motor in the car. This is my 1st build of this type and I am trying to do it right the 1st time. The thought of spending all the time and cash just to have it explode because I didn't do something right does not sit well with me.
Since you are using the 310 cam I suggest STRONGLY that you check the piston to valve clearance during a mock up build. After degreeing the cam, physically rotate the engine over with a socket to make sure there things are happy. I place plasticine on the pistons and rotate the engine over... Then section the plasticine and measure the piston to valve clearance. I like to make sure that no matter how the cam is degreed there is lots of clearance, that way if I change the degree of the cam I do not have to worry about piston to valve clearance. As you can see the valves could hit the pistons using the top set of pistons compared to the bottom set.... Valve notches are required on some builds.
Sean, you beat me to the punch, I was going to post a thread called "to notch or not to notch..that is the question" about wich pistons I should get. They cost a bit more, but the notched pistons will not make any difference in performance right? I was thinking I will just purchase the notched ones and not have to worry about returning a set if the flat tops dont work.
Taulb, Notched pistons wont perform any different in your engine (as long as you get the same comp. ratio as the flat tops you were looking at). They are notched strictly for valve clearance issues (i.e. higher lift cams). Checking valve-to-piston clearance is always a good thing regardless tough. If your having Kammer put it together, they'll check that anyway. And i know, wrong Shawn. But i couldnt help it....
Good points Shawn! One thing to remember is that if you are using the oversized valves then the valve reliefs need to be a little bigger. Depending on the pistons you are using most of the time you can add reliefs to the pistons although in some cases there is not enough depth in the piston to make the notches. The reliefs will change the compression ratio slightly, if you are going for a high compression setup and want over 10:1 then a flat top would be good for that. Most likely if you require valve reliefs on the flat tops then you would also require them on the stock style pistons so use what ever pistons get your compression close to what you want, do a mock up and add reliefs if needed.
:gp: Taulb, for what your building, if you had to have your pistons slightly relieved for the larger valves (which with notched you may/may not have to), your static comp. ratio would change so very slightly (as Sean said) that youd have no significant performance loss in a street motor. Sean, thanks for the props, but I was only piggybacking off what you said!:laugh:
So ill be 9.98321-1 compression.. I think I can manage :TU: I will be happy just as long as my motor doesnt try and eat itself
So there I was, minding my own buisness and porting my heads. Everything was going very well and I was doing pretty good. Then guess who decided to show up? Mr. Water jacket! :spank: it was the last bowl on the head too :rant: it was all looking so promising.... so ill be posting on the parts wanted forum for another set of heads, that I will only be gaskett matching.
Maybe you could use some of this to repair the hole? I know a guy who used it on an iron head that he hit water on... It worked for him, 2 years later his car is still running geat making over 500 hp. http://www.caswellcanada.ca/shop/pyro-putty.html
I have never heard of the stuff, that is pretty interesting! I was hopefull there was something out there. Ill have to give it a shot here soon, but for now I need to take a few steps back and calm down. Id hate to make another mistake just because I am frustrated. Thanks for the heads up though. :TU:
