Bill

The foundry told me last October that they were going out of business. However, they were able to downsize both in square footage and payroll and keep the doors open. They were basically OOB for nearly 6 weeks.

We have cast a few heads this year and it appears that we have identified and corrected the problems we encountered.

While all this was going on I also took on making castings of a new valley cover, alternator bracket and intake manifold. When we got a quote to machine the manifolds and extrapolated what the cost of machining the heads would add to the bill it seemed logical to buy a machine center and do this in house. I then found a 6 month old machine with a 4th axis on epay. It was a repo and only 100miles from our shop. Too good to be true! Purchase and delivery were arranged and the rep came and set it up. The 4th axis unit was still in the crate, never installed. The rep connected it while it was still in the crate and felt that it was drawing a little more current than it should but felt it would free-up with a little use.

Since the center line of the horizontal 4th axis was too low to swing an intake manifold, spacer blocks needed to be built to raise it approx 2.5". A tail stock was made from an import rotary table. All is going well! The day came to install the spacer blocks, 4th axis and tailstock. It won't fit in the machine's cabinet. It wouldn't even fit without the spacers! So the enclosure of the 4th axis and the spacers needed to be modified to fit.

Once again we are back on track! Install everything and the 4th axis won't even run! The rep says its now out of warranty being over 1 year old. So, a couple of days of messing with it and it seems to work okay.

Then comes the fun of building fixtures for alt brackets, valley covers and the intake. This consumes the next 4months. There also is the small issue of learning how to program a cnc machine, something I have no clue how to do. Earn as you learn.

Please realize I'm writing this to bring you up to speed, not just sing the blues. Just so you understand that no one has given up on the head project. There have just been many more obstacles. More than I'm saying here.

Your patience is appreciated!   John

Thanks for the update.  I'll bet Pegleg is about the only guy here who truly understands what you have gone through.

CASTINGS: Cast at local foundry in El Cajon, Calif USA

CASTING NUMBER: ECZ-G in original location 3/8" letters

COMPATIBILITY: All stock location externally. Will accept stock intake manifolds, exhaust, rocker arms, valve covers. Roller rockers will require different spacing due to altered valve spacing.

EXTERIOR APPEARANCE: As close to original as possible. Horizontal parting line like mid-1959 and later heads. Non-negotiable.

VALVE SIZE: 1.94" X 1.50 to 1.54". 11/32" single groove keeper, 45 degree seats.

AIR FLOW:  Sample test head that ports were copied from: 255cfm intake  179cfm exhaust. Out of box est. 230int 170 ex.

DECK THICKNESS: .600"

HEAD BOLTS: 7/16". ARP bolts & washers supplied with heads. Modifications up to purchaser. Use of original head bolts will void any and all warrantees.

VALVE SPRINGS: 1.44" diameter 115# seat, chrome moly retainers, hardened & machine keepers, hardened spring cups

VALVE SEATS: Exact material to be determined. Ductile iron, powdered metal or ?

SPARK PLUGS: 14mm 3/4" reach. Moved .400" closer to exhaust valve centerline (away from intake valve).

COMBUSTION CHAMBER: approx 62-64cc. It is impossible to determine from the pattern. Only a fully machined casting can be checked. As pointed out earlier in this thread aluminum heads actually need a higher CR than iron heads due to heat loss. When feasible large chamber heads will be made available.

BARE CASTINGS: Will be available. Guide sizing and valve job un-finished.

ROCKER OILING: Stock. Haven't figured an easy way to oil stud mount rockers

WILL ANSWER QUESTIONS AS THEY COME UP

We went through the learning curve of programming CNC machines.   Tons of programs and software companies are available.  All are good, some are better.  Only bit of wisdom I can give are to start with a major provider of software, and not get overwhelmed with all the bells and whistles.  Learn how to do the minimum required for the task at hand and in time the advanced features will come in to play.   Large software suppliers have tech help and instructors who come to your shop.   They want to make you happy so you stay with them!   Every programmer has their preferance of software and controllers for the mill.  Many vocational and tech schools also have programming classes.  Several of our pattern makers/machinists also worked part time to assist other small shops (or had their own) to help the learning curve.  Perhaps there is a machine shop in your area you could get help from.  

Its a huge investment, not just in money, but time and energy as you well know.

Keep up the good work!

J

DON"T GIVE UP

J

So they cast another head. Another disappointment. w00t:

I happen to remember something Frank R had mentioned in a conversation last year. He said that some patterns cast better upside down. Mentioned this idea to the foundry owner and they tried it. We now have 4 castings that look good.

So now the head is being cast with the deck surface on top instead of the rocker stands. This seems to have cured the problem of the water jacket core breaking loose and floating up. The sand core is now under compression and can't go anywhere.

Because we will be holding the head in a totally different manor than Ford originally did, building the fixture to hold the new casting will be easy. What will be difficult is attaching a factory head to the machine in the same location to pick up gasket surface heights. I've made a sketch of what I think will work, just need to get started on making it.

Things are looking up. Will post updates as work progresses.

Still a few hurdles to get over but it seems like the finish line is in sight.

      Thanks for the tour and the chat last week.  It cleared some things up and helps me in the direction I want to go.

Regards,  Marc

We had the head foundry guy down from the new foundry last week to look things over. They are all at the SEMA show this week so nothing is happening this week.

The plan is to deliver the patterns next week. They will make recommendations regarding gating so I can make necessary changes. I had hoped to have cores and castings made at one location but the new foundry is too automated for our core boxes and it will take too much modification to make them compatible with their equipment. So the core boxes will go to a separate core shop.

I am confident that we can get into production soon as this foundry casts heads every day and should have encountered any problems that might crop up before and know how to deal with them.

With a little luck we can get this show on the road.

We are scheduled to deliver the patterns on Friday the 13th. I hope there is nothing to that superstition. I will then need to make the necsessary changes to gating and deliver the match plate back to them.

They talk as if they can get to this project fairly quickly so we should know something soon.

Let's keep our fingers crossed, just in case we need it.

The Holidays will hold things up a bit but they should be able to make some samples fairly quickly. Hopefully all will go well and there won't be an extended period of trial and error.

I will keep you guys posted as things progress. Thanks for your patience.

Will these heads be sold as Edelbrocks or are they making these for you with your name on the head?

They did tell me they like to put their "E" or "EF" logo in the valve cover area. I have no problem with that. The heads will have my name and Y8 logo. There just isn't room for the entire logo on the head. In fact I don't think there is even room for their logo. It will probably end up on the deck in the reliefs under the intake ports.

Kid, do you work for McComis?

Guys, don't count on any aluminum blocks from me. After the ordeal of making heads, nobody could talk me into that!

There are plenty of other projects I have in mind when time allows. We'll see how that goes.

My Dentist is a car guy and has a book on Edelbrock in the waiting room. I read a story Vic JR related about Vic Sr's 55 T-Bird (342 stroker). They raced nearly every weekend against a certain scrubvette, one would win one week the other the next,ect. Vic JR pleaded for a chance to drive the T-Bird, confident that he could win. He was beaten badly and wasn't allowed to race the car again. Is this when he decided that Y-Blocks weren't any good? I don't know.

Actually, that's the exact reason they are willing to do the heads. They have no interest in doing Y-Block stuff. They will only take in outside work that doesn't conflict with what they do.

Hope to get this out of the way this weekend and machine the 2 new castings. One will get cut up to check for any problems. If okay, we will give Edelbrock the go ahead. If there are problems we will need to round up the offending core box or match plate and make corrections. This will likely add a few weeks. Things are looking up.

I'm a little surprised to see they will remake 3-2 intake for the Y-Block. They never mentioned that, although they did tell me about the 94 carbs. I suggested they make some "dummy" carbs with no internals since a lot of people only run on the center carb.

John, that exact same thought has crossed my mind also probably along with jonn m, lets hope all goes smoothly, cant wait!!!!

Unported air flow is 235 intake and 180 exhaust. We have done some porting on this head before cutting it up. Lower port tunes up to 250CFM. Exhaust port is up to 200CFM with 1-5/8" to 1-3/4" stepped 90 degree stub. The exhaust flow is very good and should help performance throughout the RPM range.

It looks like the head will be capable of 260CFM intake and 210 exhaust. This is what we expected and probably close to the limits of the original design. This should make a 500HP N/A Y-Block a reality.

More info to come.

This would be interesting to see!

Really looking forward for delivery of my new heads with a few clean up pointers as I know you will be busy delivering heads for a while.

The valve sizes are:  1.94" intake, 1.54" exhaust. Stainless steel with chrome stems, hardened tip.

Valve length: 5.110-5.130"

Spring pressures are 110# seat,  280 @ .500" lift.

With +.050" keepers the spring pressure is 85# seat.

Single spring with damper. 1.250" diameter. Installed height; 1.750" with standard height keepers and retainers.

Steel spring cup. Steel 1 piece retainer. Hardened keepers.

Bare machined cast weight is 24.5 pounds.

Combustion chamber 60cc + -

We should receive 6 more castings March 19th.

Machine program is 99%. Just looking at various drill bits and cutters to speed up the job or leave the best finish.

                                Yessiree John, a site indeed, i'm sure i speak for all of us in saying, "Thank You Sir, soooo much!" Can only imagine the headache/heartache, you've been through, though i do have a coupla buddies down here who put themselves through the same 'torture', so really i do know a lil of how you feel, and have felt, through all of this. But rest assured you have beaten 'Goliath' Mate, to death! (lol) Well Done!! 

                                Not to forget you Ted, for your time in helping keep all of us nosey blokes up to date and a lil better informed and understanding of all that is involved, Thank You too!

                                 Let the Fun Begin!!!!!!!!!!!

Absolutely gorgeous!

The photo's (that I've seen) only show three sides of the heads! Some of the intake side would be great?

On Dyno testing this is obviously a testing ground where they can show thier worth. I for one would be interesed in seeing a milder street engine tested as well as a hotter race engine. Obviously not every application can be tested but this would give a reasonable range for customers who would be interested.

Also on reliability is a set of heads going to be tested on something that is regularly driven. Obviouly racing shows how they will perform (last) in the high temp high pressure environment that racing is, but daily driving has it's own set of extremes. Multipule warm up and cool down cycles, traffic, lugging loads I can see that these heads could be used in many applications, as many as there are Y block interest groups and be used in T birds, F100, trucks, a range of passenger cars from rods to full size cars. I'm wondering how reliability will be tested?   

Personally I've paid $1800 for porting and head work on a two cylinder two valves per cylinder motorcycle heads.

A couple grand for a set of heads that work better than the "G" option out of the box, is a better sounding alternative.

The heads have proven themselves on the dyno. That's clear. I'd like to hear from someone who has them on a "driver" and can give some info on what they are like to drive. The other main concern is reliability   

We will receive another 60 castings next Monday and they are spoken for.

Don't try to use logic to understand the economy. When faced with spending money on what they need or what they want, people will chose what they want ever time.

Don't forget, if you are employed during a recession, its just a buying opportunity. Its only if you are unemployed that it becomes a disaster.

Look at the stock market going up when the economy appears weak. Hard to explain.

There are also some young single guys with no wives or kids to take all of the cash.

The aluminum heads really are a no brainer if doing a performance build.  You can easily have just as much in a set of iron heads for the same performance.  For that reason, I agree that I see no reason that a T-bird guy wanting to maintain the stock configuration would shell out the dough.  2 g's makes no sense when he can rework his current heads to achieve his goal for much less.

These heads really are for the guy who's going to take it above stock performance levels and when you compare them to other low demand engines, they really aren't that expensive.

If John has done his work right with these heads, and I'm sure he has, they will sell themselves.

cheers Warren Adams

From my perspective, the Thunderbird show crowd segment of the market is a relatively small percentage of those looking for Y-Block parts that will actually upgrade a Y engine.  That is their prerogative and I’m fine with the reasoning behind it.  On the flip side, there’s a much larger number of early Thunderbird owners who drive their cars and this group definitely wants to keep a Y under the hood if it will make some power numbers that are in line with a SBF or other engine swap.  To this end, the aluminum heads have got some TBird engine swaps putting Y’s back under the hoods simply for the nostalgia of having the original engine back in the car.  And for those who try to maintain some resemblance of originality, they are painting both the aluminum heads and aluminum intakes.  And let’s not overlook the F100 crowd.  That is the sleeper group for buying up Y parts as those pickups are out there in abundance and still priced where you can actually buy one. This is where I see many of the aluminum heads ultimately ending up.  It’s the F100 show group that’s going so far as to chrome the heads just for that additional amount of ‘one up ya’ which makes aluminum heads a natural for that group.

Requests for the aluminum heads on my end as an engine builder is strong.  Those requests are easily outweighing the production capability at this point in time so there’s obviously a waiting period for the heads right now.  The aluminum heads are no different than those for other engines in that if they are available, there will be a market for them.  There’s even an aluminum head available for the Ford 200 six now and that didn’t happen because there was no market for them.  What I see on the Y aluminum heads is once the intial demand is filled for engines that are currently being built with these heads in mind, there will be head sales to those wanting the make sure they have a set on the shelf for a future project.  It will be these heads that will be showing up for sale long after the heads are no longer being produced.  This is exactly what’s been occurring with the highly touted Ardun heads for the flathead Ford V8.

The aluminum heads have definitely raised the performance bar to the next level.  Although stout performance could be obtained on the oem heads with the addition of power adders, the horsepower potential with the normally aspirated engines with iron heads had pretty much peaked and leveled off.  The aluminum heads have changed all that by leaps and bounds.

Almost forgot, where are you located? It helps to put city/state in your tag line.

thanks guys

john

I sent a message a while back wanting to order an intake among other things. Did you get it? Chuck