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10-31-2007
no...i just sold everything I had in the basement that wasn't nailed down very well

I think the GTO front end makes it look lower than it really is, I only dropped it about an inch, just enough to make the wheel/tires look right in the wheel wells.

10-31-2007
Thanks. It's a 10-15 foot paint job, the sun has taken it's toll over the years. The wheels are 550 and it's also got spring and shock work so it does handle pretty well.

10-31-2007
The car makers are getting very clever these days......

I saw a SBC pick up 150 hp switching from 1.7 rockers to 1.5 rockers on the exhaust….the guys had way over ported the exhaust and limiting the lift to restrict the exhaust flow down to where it belonged worked and absolute miracle. I've seen absolutely bizarre stuff work well on restrictor plate race engines. As far as rolling the cam, on any engine that is set-up properly with head, intake, exhaust flows all matching the cam rpm and compression it just seems like there is a right spot and everywhere else is wrong. I think once everything is matched up right then the cam is either right of wrong within a couple degrees anyway.

I think for this project, I’ve already bitten off more than 1 winter is going to let me handle so I’ll just be happy to get it running with any cam timing and intake length

10-31-2007
I've never seen those.

I was talking to a head guru years ago about an engine I was doing and he was going to do the heads. The factory had just come out with new oval port design vs the round ports that I had, so I asked if I should get a set of the new ones for him to work on because I wanted the best (I was young and this was my race bike after all). This guy did all the porting for the factory race team and he told me “the air doesn’t really care what shape the port is, I port the old factory heads to 138 and I port the new factory heads to 138 and both bikes make 95 rwhp. I have no idea why they changed them, but it doesn’t add hp.”

I wonder if the new tall ports work better with a dual plant intake? That’s all I can think.

10-31-2007
I think you hit the nail on the head when you said the ports are no longer paired....they may have needed the odd shape to make that work out.

I actually thought about criss-crossing everything to lengthen the runners, it’s not a bad idea and can still work with the ITB set-up. It would pull the lower rpm torque up, but would cast high rpm power. A big wide torque curve is really nice, but so is a bragging rights hp number……oh the decisions that need to be made….

10-31-2007
I just got the shipping bill for the engine....ouch.

The good news is it's now leaving CA and will be here in 9 days or so.

11-01-2007
Well stop by Bill! The engine will be here in 9 days or so, I'll be working on the TBs and flow bench until then. I've decided to not build the intake until I have a port design worked out so I know what shape to put in the manifold.

do you still have the paint boost???? I've got a 308 just dying to be painted

Of course you need a lathe, I can’t understand how anyone would question that. The next thing they’ll be trying to tell you that you don’t need a mill to go with it

I built a flow bench years ago...but then I was seduced by the dark side (boost) and no longer saw a need for it and sold it. Now that I’ve returned to the path of light and goodness (as Russ would say), I need a flow bench again I think. A couple manometers, a shop vac or 2, a little PVC pipe, and a table or bench to bolt it all to, that’s all there is to it really. To measure gain or loss, it doesn’t even need any kind of calibration, but I guess I should make a couple calibration plates too so I can put actual flow values to the numbers so I know when it’s good enough.

11-04-2007
I got a little done this weekend. I started building a flow bench to play with the heads. I'm nearly done, I still need to make calibration plates, a cylinder/head adapter, run some hose to the manometers, and calibate the slant manometer.

I bought red fluid for the slant manometer to match what came with the u-tube manometer and learned that was a bad idea...the red fluid is basically kerosene I think and has very low surface tension making it sit in the meter tube at a horible angle so it's very hard take a reading. I'll replace it with green fluid, which is basically colored water and will sit nearly square the the meter tube in spite of the angle the tube sits at.

any way, I should be ready to start baselining the TR heads in a couple days. I haven't found a junk head to practice on yet, so I'm going to try taking a rubber mold of the ports and combustion chamber and then see if I can make an epoxy casting that flow like the original. Then I take try anything I please with no worries.

10-05-2007
With the pipe sizes I used in the metering tube, I think the full-scale reading should be about 200cfm, which is probably a touch optimistic for these heads, but what the heck, you never know

The next smaller pipe only yields 115, and I’m really hoping to do better than that….and I didn’t want to bore out a pipe because I’m lazy.....

11-10-2007
I got the TR head on my new flow bench today and got some intake flow numbers at 10" h2o

Lift.........flow
.050".......23
.100".......50
.150".......75.5
.200".......86.5
.250"......101.5
.300"......106
.350"......108
.400"......108.5
.450"......110
.500"......110

The high lift numbers were better than I expected. Enough better that I really questioned my calibration, but I think it's right. I did the calibration 2 different ways and they agree within 2%, but I was still questioning it. I grabbed a head I have that was flowed on an EPA certified flow bench and I was told has a peak number of 148, but it was only 142 on my bench which says I’m low if anything.

Now I need to figure out how to get them up to 130-135 range which is what I think I’ll need to clear the 600hp hurtle