V12's and good plans are a bit like women and money, either one apart from the other misses out on something! ghehheh good luck on the build and cheers from Belgium
Using custom rods, piston and a good 1/4 Gram balance job along with a good HEI, the right plugs and good carburetion they can be a fun and competitive engine to run. BUT... parts are hard to come by. Normbc9
Just dicovered this thread and gave it a quick read. My jaw dropped when I thought you were going to get snookered by empire. I almost did afew years ago, what you described is his classic schtick. There never were any heads. Just talk to some people in the lzoc. They will fill you in.some poeple have paid money down YEARS ago and still don't have their stuff. I did a couple of these engines for customers, and on the one I found a set of Kearny heads. Mr Kearny of Kearny Foundries was a Lincoln V-12 nut, and made his own finned aluminum heads and tri-power manifold. Beautiful pieces. He has passed way a few years ago, but I beleive his son still runs the business, and every so often makes a run of parts. they are in socal. There is also some of his stuff floating around through third parties. I bought mine through a guy by the name of Earle o. Brown.A very nice gentleman, and quite helpful. he has tons of NOS and reproduction parts. sorry i don't have any phome #s for you, I have moved recently and everthing is buried. Your best bet is to google the LZOC, they have a web site with links to various people such as Earle Brown. Good luck on your build these things are way cool in spite of all their shortcomings. Get rid of the hydraulic lifters, flathead Fords drop right in. Same with the valves. Have your cam reground. Use a melling M-15 and pick-up, with the clearances correct, you will have plent of oil pressure. p.s. just found Earle's phone:724-941-4567 he the man V-12 parts
Thanks! I wondered how Empire was going to get past my COD insistence after google and the HAMB said not to trust him..... apparently the plan was "Oh, I just sold the last set I had in stock.....". What an ass. H&H lists heads in there catalog from 2 places...an unnamed US maker for $3800 and Hogan in NZ for $2400 which is a lot of money and either set would need major re-work to do any of the things I'm thinking chamber wise. Weldments would be somewhere in the $400-$1000 range for material depending how much welding vs machining I decided to do....and I'm cheap so there would likely be more welding and less spending Or I could snag a set of factory Alum heads and weld the snot out of them....I think I've seen them for around $500. Or I could live with basically factory chambers and let the blower do more of the work.......I'd really like to get the unboosted HP up to 200+ so the boost can stay low but I'll make sure I size the blower so that if push comes to shove I will make the hp number. I do have 6 laminova heat exchanger cores sitting on the shelf: http://www.opcon.se/web/ECD54.aspx that was planning for an in-manifold water/air intercooler for a project I canceled and clearly a boat engine has access to all the cool water it wants.....so keeping the inlet charge cool regardless of boost number shouldn't be a problem. My main concern with uppin gthe boost is avoiding the whine that grows louder as boost goes up....I want it to sound like a V12 not a turbine. A screw blower at 4-6 psi is pretty quite and I'd be happy....at 24 psi its frikin loud and I'd be unhappy......less is better I think for this application. I've been thinking a whole lot about crank flex lately as I follow the flatcad thread and that is really what pushed me to make the call to move to a blower. Crank loads from RPM (piston speed and weight really) are way higher than from just HP so while before I was thinking this would be designed to spin to 5000-5500 now I'm thinking I should really be building a 4000 rpm redline engine that is intended to run around at or under 3500 most of the time......and that means smaller ports and cam less duration....and that means a blower will be needed to hit the 300hp goal if I expect the power band to be more than 500 rpm wide. I think someone tried to tell me this way at the beginning of the thread but I just wasn't listening very well.....I get it now though
Childs play!.. Who hasn't taken a sawzall to genuine Ferrari Parts?! HAHAHAHa! That motor (and headers) is beautiful! What I wouldn't do to have that in my Living room!!! GL on your boat!
Pretty sure the "unnamed us maker for $3800" are the Kearny Foundry heads. Thats about what we paid a few years ago. If they are, I can vouch that they are a good product. Glad for you you got away from empire. He gave us a similar song and dance after my client sent him a check for $5000 for heads and intake, saying they would be shipped right away. I called him the next day and without telling him who I was, he informed me that he hasn't had any for a while, but he was gonna go out in the foundry and get some going and would I like to send him a deposit? I said no and hung up. He calls back five minutes later and says "your client just ordered those heads, and we are working on them right now".I told him he needed to get his story straight. We then stopped payment on the check and I ordered from Earle. We had the parts by the end of the week. I believe he has been banned from advertising in Hemmings and some other publications.You know the good thing about the truth is you only have one story to remember. I would agree that you would do better to keep the RPMs down in light of that long wiggley crank. Your odds of it surviving are much greater and It will be more enjoyable to drive as well. Those engines are what they are, beautiful and unique, but no matter what you do to it, it will never be a brute powerhouse. They can be just a reliable as any other engine, and I applaud your efforts.Can't wait to see it done.
Thanks. I do know exactly what my wife would expect me to give if I tried to park it in the living room.....my life!
I kept getting the sense that the guy I was speaking to was about 90 years old and just no longer all there. You know...same story from days long gone ended up in every phone call, no interest in ever finishing the conversation.......the whole thing has left me wondering if maybe the business actually closed years ago and Ray, if that's his name, just no longer understands that.
Got an email from Empire....it seems I'm in luck! He'll have another set ready next week! What luck! Wow!
That's great! I'm sure they are coming 'air express', hauled by 8 magic flying reindeer, and a large guy in a red suit! The big guy likes cookies and milk!
Empire Motrs (also called Empire Castings) Are crooks. DON'T BUY FROM THIS GUY!I ordered the finned aluminum heads from him. He kept the money and hasn't fabricated them. He refuses to answer his phone. When I looked up the location on Google Maps, there is just an old wrecking yard there. There have been several lawsuits, but he just keeps getting away with stealing money from people. The Guy's name is RAY PERRIGUEY.
That's what I keep hearing.....I haven't found anyone who's ever actually gotten anything from him. Did you order Lincoln heads? Did he steal your deposit or the full amount? He called me yesterday to tell me they were and done and would be shipping....which is exactly what he said in the message & email he left Thursday. On Fri I replied "great!.....now on Monday you said you had none in stock so I'm honestly amazed that you could make and heat treat the heats in only 2 days! Wow!
Well, apparently it's coming by UPS. Empire called me yesterday with a valid UPS tracking number that says the package will arrive Tuesday. I also did find a few people who have actually received stuff from Empire recently and happy with the parts: http://forums.aaca.org/f128/finned-aluminum-cylinder-heads-319058.html So well see what shows up!
Ray called to be sure I'd gotten his message with the tracking number and in talking he mentioned he had 3 sets of unfinned heads (as cast, not finished) sitting in stock that he has had no interest in since the finned version became available. Originally I wasn't unfinned "Zypher" script for the simple, clean look but didn't really want to deal with trying to weld the chambers on 60+ year old heads when I could have brand new castings to work with. So now I'm 3/4 thinking that if, and it may be a big if, but if the finned heads arrive Tuesday and look good, I may have him ship a set of unfinned heads and ebay the finned ones. I can't see that the fins would actually bring a meaningful cooling improvement to the table since the problem is flow down in the block not combustion heat in the heads....and for my boat application in particular the engine will be in a mostly seated engine bay so very little air flow but unlimited cool water flow......I have to wonder what value other than appearance the fins actually provide anyway?
He kept the full amount. I've tried to call him several times. No answer. It used to go to voicemail, now the phone just rings. Let me know if the heads show up. I did order the Lincoln V12 finned aluminum heads.
He charged me $265 for shipping. I told him that I would pay when he confirmed the heads were ready (although I think that' outragious for freight when UPS charges only about $75). I'm really curious to see if you get the heads & if they are any good.
Interesting project keep us up to date. Had no idea there were heads out there for these. At least in small production figures.
The heads came today....and they look really good. They were created so that explains some of the highish shipping cost. There is a touch of porosity on the as cast gasket surface but the castings are designed to have 1/8" removed during machining so that would probably clean it up.....but I want all the height I can have in the chamber so I'll probably weld up the couple little areas. The side that shows is nice...some sand gain size dusting of aluminum here and there, but that will clean right off. over-all very good.
Congratulations. You are the only person I've ever heard of who has received product from that man. Getting those head bolt holes properly indexed and drilled is gonna be fun. But hey at least you got em. Thanks for sharing.
I was thinking there was no hope that head would show because like you I couldn't find anyone who had received anything....but last week I stumbled on a couple threads on the AACA forum and found people who had gotten parts and now so have I .......I can say that the COD requirement I put on the order went a REALLY long way in keeping Ray interested in the job. The machining is the fun part. These things are pretty long so I can't cut them in 1 setup on my mill (bridgeport clone). I can clamp them the swing the head or maybe phone a friend with a larger mill....I'll probably do it on my machine though because the extra setup time is still faster than making the drive to my buddy's place.
Congratulations on getting the heads. The COD must have worked. At least there's hope for me. Ray called me yesterday and said my heads were ready & please mail him the freight money. I think that I'll use your COD idea for the freight & see if he'll ship them that way.
Just found this thread between reading it and part of your euro build I have spent half the morning, Nice suprise the heads showing up did you lay a head gasket on them to see if the chambers were close before giving paying cod? not that you would not just weld it up an fix it. anyway great build I had the pleasure on tinkering with a 1947 lincoln with a v12 for a customer but I spent most my time making his overdrive work but I did get to put a few miles on it and it was a great here is a link. I know not really related but broght back old memories Andy youtu.be/7Vkoo72vgso
Well Empire sent me photos of the heads that he sent to you. Called them " Per-production First Articles of the Casting Tooling". Says he's "making modifications to the Production Casting tooling". Then asked me to send him $265 for freight so that he can process my order. So, he hasn't made the finished product. Yours might have been on his shelf for awhile. Think I'll ask him to ship mine COD. Thanks for the idea. Good luck with yours.
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