The articles I read a while back put a bunch of different coatings into each NASCAR engine... heat barrierrs/reflectors, anti-friction, oil drain-back, etc. Water jacketed exhaust seems an EXCELLENT place to keep the heat moving along toward elsewhere. And what about that porting using friction/abrasive material pumped through??
These dayd, you're probably thinking of ExtrudeHone. Very expensive process. FWIW, the first use I'd seen/heard was Smokey Yunick porting a Hudson flathead six by pumping concrete slurry through the block. That was about 1953 or so. jack vines
This is a thread that has my attention! I've ported a few LZ V12 blocks; two were for restorations and the third was for a poser hot rod with the V12 used for drama, and the work done on it to benefit the 'build sheet.' All the work was done without benefit of any meaningful performance-improvement info, so the effect was more like blueprinting -- what Ford should have done -- rather than hop-up work. I was disappointed by the poor casting quality of the V12s, figuring that they would be really special, which they were not. The bowls and runners looked as though the patterns had been touched up with filler and then not final finished before casting. I look forward to learning some interesting lessons here because I would still like to port a very special LZ V12. Tidied up and ready for assembly of a resto motor . . . The sides of the bowls are especially crude, and of course there is a big "brow" over the exit of the short radius of the intake runner. The runner inlets from the intake manifold are choked with lumpy bits. The siamesed intakes cleaned up rather neatly on this resto block with a low time budget. That said, I'd love to have the opportunity to spend some time making the contours and surfaces really special someday. It's a shame that all the LZ V12 intakes aren't as neat and short as the one-to-one inboard pairs on each bank. Please share the ideas and the work. Mike
hahahaha, damn! that dude was the man indeed! thinking outside the box for sure. I would love to know what gains he really got from the abrasive pump job.
Someone who's actually done one, now we're getting somewhere! I will definitely post everything I do....or better yet what I plan to do for feedback. Right now the plan look basically like this: 1) read a bunch of books on flat head ford builds figuring the general ideas will transfer. I ordered 3 which should be here any day. 2) figure out just how long stroke crank will fit in the block. 4.5" is the goal I think but anything over stock will help 3) get the baseline flow numbers, port section areas, etc and see what dynomation5 says should work and make a plan. I'm a big fan of good simulation software....it just saves so many mistakes. In my mind the key is going to be getting decent flow and I really need to spend some time thinking about this. Right now my thought is to get a set of aluminum heads, probably new castings from Empire (he's agreed to run them without a deposit so no risk to me) then weld a 1/4" or maybe 3/8" plate to the bottom and do a little filling in the chamber (you guys knew I'd figure out a way to do lots of welding right? ). This will let me go to a 3/8 - 5/8 dome piston and really open up the area between the bore and valves and still have probably still too much compression if I can go to a good long stroke like a 4.5". Too much compression would mean I can maybe open up around the valves a bit and try to get some flow over the top. I'm also thinking that crower sells roller lifters for the fords which should fit and roller lifter would let me run a pretty aggressive modern cam grind. The goal being to hold the seat to seat duration to around 240 to maybe 250 degrees but still have .440-.500 total lift and 220-230 degrees at .050". I'm thinking this will get good power from about 800-1000 rpm until I run out of flow....but sorting this stuff out is where a program like dynomation5 really helps.
I gave H&H a call to day to chat about parts they have, what they can build, etc. What I learned is that they can get a couple sets of nice looking heads 2400 and 3800. They can get intakes at 700-1000. They do basic "I'm sure this helps" porting and figure they get about 175 on the naturally aspirated engines. They set up their blower engines at 6psi which should yield about 225-250hp and they hold together......in show cars. So pretty mild compared to what is done with the ford V8 engines.....and cost seems to be the driving factor there. I asked about roller lifters and the answer is "it's $1600 for just the lifters then you'll need a billet cam if you can even get one so you'd be looking at $4000" The answer on stroker cranks and good rods was simply "no". I pressed a bit and asked about regrinding the crank for work with the steel ford rods but the answer was they will hit the sides of the smaller V12 bore plus they are too short. Its a good think I like a challenge I chatted with Empire again and they tell me they can cast the heads with the head side solid and with any added thickness I want. I'm thinking of having them give me 1/2" so I have plenty to do whatever I want. I'll make a couple test chambers to play with on the flow bench the when I know what works I can cut the real heads. Cooling I was looking at the cooling a bit over the weekend....I'm not surprised these things have HUGE cooling problems. With the water pump feeding the block from the front and the block feeding the heads along the deck then the heads dumping out the front you have the mechanical equivalent of a short-circuit. Most of the flow will be from the pump directly up to the outlet with very little actual cooling happening. The quick(est) fix I think is to move the outlets to the back of the head with a small like 1/4" bypass line coming off the front of the head to keep air purged out. Moving the outlet to the back means there is basically the same pressure drop block to head form the front to the back and that will, in theory at least, make the coolant flow across each cylinder pretty uniform.....I think. The very best answer is probably to feed the block front and back with a center out on the head (and again a small bypass up front for air) but this shouldn't really be required on a 200-250hp engine, its' more a 1000hp cooling system and total over kill I think. Flow My sim software is telling me what is always tells me, more air is better and a 4 x 2-barrel intake is the minimum if it's fitted with holley 94 carbs. I actually HATE carburetors (and distributors)...I know this is the wrong forum for such heresy but I can't help it, I just can't go back...I can't. I want this engine to look period correct and put carbs on top but I'll probably just use them as throttle bodies and either put electronic injectors in them or in the valley. I've also be playing with the idea of installing bosch CIS (continuous injection system) injectors in a carb and them letting the computer vary the fuel pressure to get the correct spray....basically make a computer controlled/tuned carb. I'm pretty sure this could be done without too awful much effort and this might be a good project to try it on. Crank If I want a steel stroker crank then it's going to be a custom piece it seems. Has anybody here ever made a crank? I've done them for harleys but never a real crank...but I'm thinking I could get a chunk of 4340 and rough one out then have it hardened then send the blank off to a crank shop to be finish ground and balanced and maybe cut the total bill by 1/3 to 1/2 over just having someone build the whole thing. I'll need to shop around a bit I guess..
Coatings...the good articles I remember were fron Circle Track back when Smokey hisself was writing for them. Probably unfindable in my attic by now and also probably obsolete... I would hunt two ways: Look for websites of the people making these various stuffs, and then ask a high zoot engine builder...the right guy would find this project and its peculiarities intriguing, as long as you promise not to enter your engine in competition with him! A lot of the coatings I read about seemed to be a LOT of trouble for tiny possible gains in a hyper competitive/hyper funded world, but a heat barrier in Lincoln exhausts really sounds worthwhile to me. Besides, once you run out of stuff to weld, you'll want to ad a turbo or 4, and this will help there too...
Very cool project! I have a heavily ported, blown Caddy flathead, with KR chambers. Damned thing breaths like a dragon-570HP, and should be 700Hp by spring. I'd be willing to share some design info with you, if you decide to go that route- the KR design is probably the most succesful flathead ever, preformance wise. If you go that route, I'd like to make a deal on a set of the heads.
Well share away! I have some info on the KR750 heads....and it looks very similar to what is found on bolt-on type ford heads these days. the fords (and lincoln) run a slight dome on the pistons which i guess is good and current thinking is more is better. The navarro heads use a 5/8" tall dome....but honestly I'm not really sure why use a "dome" meaning radius over say pop-up piston with radiused edges? The indians used a flat piston on standard bikes then a flat 1/8" pop-up on the bonneville versions and the hillclimbers took that to 1/4" or 5/16.....I see 7/16 shown as current technology on the fords.
I got my first book yesterday "flatheadford V8 performance handbook" and it's got some good stuff in it, not as much as I hoped but some good stuff. It does have a lot of flow numbers and the lincoln should be very similar I think. I took the stock ford flathead flow numbers, my best guess at the stock cam specs and suck and plugged it all into dynomation......122hp. So the model looks like it's working pretty good. Now to see what happens when I change stuff
Here's something kind of interesting, at least to me. I plotted the flow data for the stock ford 8BA against the stock ferrari flow data of a 400i which is a 2 valve per cylinder 292ci V12. Nearly identical!....that ford data actually looks a bit better! The stock ferrari makes 340hp with its horrible EPA cams and intake system so it appears the fundamental problem is not the flow in the block/head combination.......hmmmmm
It looks like it's the bolt-on stuff honestly The intake with a single 94 carb is WAY WAY to small. The intake with 3 x 94 carbs is only way too small. Once the cams and exhaust manifolds are replace the hp keeps climbing until the intake flow hits about 4000cfm @ 1.5"Hg Way WAY not enough lift in the cams..... Way not enough flow in stock exhaust manifold with these changes the number is 288hp @ 5000 rpm and 331 ft-lbs 4000 rpm. Those are big numbers. No boring or stroking or compression increase. It's a modern cam grind with about 243 degrees at .050 lift and .440" lift, an intake manifold that will flow 4000cfm and small tube headers with a muffler (big tube headers and no muffler at about 10hp) .....hmmmmmm
wooooops.......my ferrari data was at 10" and the ford at 28" so they are actually nothing alike. I was numbers I recognized and and forgot to look at the most important number I did enter it in the simulation software correctly though so that stuff remains correct I think I popped of the intake last nigh and almost got a heads off.....it's a bit stuck and the kids were sleeping upstairs (my shop is in the basement)so I didn't want to do too much banging. As cast the ports measure just about 1.295". On the other current V12 thread (http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=734596) there is some chat about how they are so small but I don't know...size wise the math says they should be good for around 100 cfm @10" (or 176 @ 28").....I don't think I believe port dia is the issue. The other part of the discussion is that 8 cylinders are siamesed. Certainly all separate is better from a pressure wave tuning standpoint but these ports/runners appear to be much too short for this to have much impact one way or the other so that seems like a non-issue. That leaves flow.....I need to see this on the flow bench to see what the little kick/area change does to flow compared to the single runner ports. I'll try to post some pics once I get the heads off but right now I'm thinking that the real problem is the bowl itself. It looks like the port makes a 90 degree turn with basically zero radius in the bowl and that after it makes a 90 degree turn at the port entrance so the air should be trying to run primarily along the bottom of the port....where it crashes into the edge of the bowl. Not good. I'm thinking the bowl area needs to be ground on top (which is pretty standard on flat head porting I guess) but then filled pretty heavily in the bottom corner.....I'm thinking silver solder instead of epoxy....but I guess it doesn't really matter much if the epoxy comes loose some day since the valves won't crash into the pistons like on an OHV and epoxy is easy....... The manifold looks pretty sketchy to me too. They cast in a pretty sharp 90 degree bend into the plenum and that seems like a pretty bad idea flow wise. I'll need to look at this but I'm thinking I'll just make something that puts stacks into a larger plenum or TBs pointing straight up. More questions for the flow bench.
Man the 1st head is stuck. I haven't tried the 2nd one yet but #1......I'm not sure just how aggressive I want to get with the hammer and wedges. Not being able to get the heads off aside, head chambers and pistons have me a bit confused at the moment…..I can’t for the life of me understand why they are the way they are other than to just write it off as “they knew what they knew in 1950” and maybe more importantly “they could make what they could make in 1950”. To me it seems like the goal is exactly the same as an OHV engine. Make it flow then design the piston (dome/dish/flat) to get the desire CR. This isn’t what appears to be going on in flathead land though which leaves me confused as to why? ..….and I think the answer brings me back to 1950 or wanting to be bolt-on compatible with 1950 stuff. I think the right answer probably put a taller radius or maybe domeish (like the Navarro setup) on the back side of the piston then bring the front side of the piston up to the top of the head like a pop-up …..the “you’re both ½ right” answer. I’m changing computers and don’t have solid modeling at the moment but I’ll draw up what I’m thinking next week. All this in mind I re-thought my plan on the heads and ordered a set of raw finned castings from empire to their standard design. This saves me the $600 up charge they wanted for custom work leaving the price $1325 plus shipping….still 2.5 times what I paid for the whole engine (if you don’t count whatever the speeding ticket I got picking it up is going to cost me) but pretty reasonable. Heeding the warnings I got I have sent no money yet, I want to see castings first. They're supposed to be casting Lincoln stuff right now so the casting will be run this week. The raw castings have about 1/8” on the gasket surface for clean up and the combustion chamber is 3/8” thick. My plan is to check the raw casting before cutting and weld up as required to get them clean at +.093 to +.125 thickness. I’ll see what the flow bench says but I’m also thinking I’ll weld up a ¼” -1/2” along the back ½ of the bore and machine so the head drops into the bore. My thought here is 2 fold. 1 is a nice big full radius is generally what air wants vs the square edge it sees in the standard pop-up piston setups. 2 is this could be done to ANY alum head pretty easily vs needing custom castings or major welding so if it works anybody could copy it easily enough. I’ll try this with clay and/or epoxy on the flow before I weld anything of course knowing I’ve been wrong plenty of times and this might be yet another example
Wow just what I like someone who doesn't use his noggin for a hat rack, can't wait to see where this goes!!!...............subscribed!!
Head 1 is off! ....and I think the only things I broke were my brass scrapers followed by a lot of damage to my now sad looking steel scrapers that I was able to drive in between the layers of the head gasket then then drive a big screw driver between them and little by little the head came loose. It took about an hour and a half of banging. Lana came home just about the time the head was coming off and wondered why exactly the kids and I were in the shop when my job was supposed to be putting them to bed so I had to choose between taking pics and doing what Lana wanted me to do .....Lana is a Sweetheart but she's also Ukrainian, and you just don't mess with Ukrainians! pics tomorrow I promise I'm going to have to rummage through the shop and see what I have for ebayable items kicking around.....becasue I didn't tell Lana about the cool new heads I ordered yet either
Here's some pics. Pretty sad inside....... I guess the bright side is the bores measure standard so once I cut out the pistons there should be plenty of material to clean them up.
I believe that may take the Understatement of the Week Award. Keep plugging away, I know there are a bunch of us that are very interested in this thread.
Great project. I'm married to an Italian-got any video of that Ferrari running? I know someone with some Lincoln stuff-I could inquire if a need arises.....
Here's one of the old engine on the dyno....supercharged to 24 psi http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9H4RQb3XB6E i didn't like the blower whine though and decided to build the V12 for it.....which isn't quite done yet and needs to be before I get too too deep into the lincoln.
LOL Head #2 came off much easier and look a a little better inside. I think all the oily goo in the valley and on the crank probably help rptect those parts....hardly any rust on that stuff. The rust in the cylinders seems to mostly scrape right off so I'm hoping things are not as bad as they look.
I pulled off the exhaust manifolds (and was shocked how easy that went) and flipped it over. You may have notice I decided to just work on the floor because things were needing beating which is easier, at least for me, on a solid surface and also I figured the ferrari is about ready to come off the stand and I probably don't need 2 V12 engine stands taking up space in the shop. This is where I got a little slowed down. The fan clutch (?) is pretty stuck so I'm thinking I'll press it off once the crank is out. Fine, move on The crank won't turn so I can't get to the clutch bolts so I can't get that off until the crank is out. Fine, move on again Then I moved onto the oil pump, pulled the bolt out and nothing happened? Doesn't budge.....and this has to come off to pull the crank so I'm stuck at the moment. Does anybody know if there is another blot somewhere before I start beating it? I did take a few minutes to look at the rod clearances. The lincoln has screw-ball canted end rods. I was told this is for clearance to the bores but looking at it it appears to be more about making assembly easier.....at least that's what I really really want to believe so I can also believe I can use off the shelf rods for a ford which are WAY cheaper than having custom rods made.
So Mark Well, here we are on another forum following another crazy engine build.. The hot rodder in me is really looking forward to this one but please, please, finish the ferrari first - some of us are not getting any younger!! John
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