Although most of the orders for the new heads have been for out of the box units there are a number of people who have asked for them to be shipped with port work done. There have been enough infact, that it will be difficult for us to supply them in time for this years racing if we continue to hand port them.

For that reason we are going to have them CNC ported. About 40-50 hours have been spent porting an upper and lower port along with an exhaust port and chambers. This has allowed us to spend more development time on the ports than would be possible on a head to head basis. The head has been delivered to the shop that will do the porting and they will be starting on the fixture, then capturing data from the head we provided.

The final cost will likely be less than the cost to hand port with quicker delivery time.

Let me know if you are interested since we may need to do up to 10 pairs to keep the price in line.

http://ford-y-block.com 

20 miles east of San Diego, 20 miles north of Mexico

John, got a guesstimate of final price? Chuck in NH

Y's guys rule!
Looking for McCullouch VS57 brackets and parts. Also looking for 28 Chrysler series 72 parts. And early Hemi parts.

MoonShadow, 292 w/McCulloch, 28 Chrysler Roadster, 354 Hemi)
Manchester, New Hampshire

Chuck, a S.W.A.G. would be in the 675-800 range. We haven't nailed this down to the last dollar. Some of it depends on quantity.

http://ford-y-block.com 

20 miles east of San Diego, 20 miles north of Mexico

I'm interested, but it will be a year or two before I'm ready for a set. How about opening up the chambers for supercharger or turbo use?


Lawrenceville, GA

John,

I don't know if it's a novel approach to use CNC to conduct port work but one that I have never heard of before (not that I know anything). I must say the theory is brilliant.

The objective of porting is to remove castings and other marks or to enlarge or reshape ports to a desired outcome. To increase flow. Where this would be difficult is in getting even consistent results by hand.(even with an experienced guy) The CNC would produce the same result time after time and not have to answer the phone or talk to a customers or get tired etc etc.....

It's a logical next step for people who want just a little bit more. Mass produced porting. Henry Ford would be smiling. Production usually means a reduction in price? Right  

A question (always a question) Once you have the port (and head) dimensions you could offer different levels of porting (two or three) by just removing more material?  I can imagine a range of porting requirement by customers.

Just a suggestion.    

Cheers

Warren 

Grizzly (Aussie Mainline)

Maybe I'm missing something, but why wouldn't the castings be designed for max flow to begin with? Then any smoothing work needed could maybe be accomplished by some kind of extrude-hone machine? Or, is the foundry process not yet developed to the point where traditional type porting work could be moot?

6 VOLTS/POS. GRD. NW INDIANA

Regarding port sizes and/or finish, what works on a race engine isn’t necessarily what’s best for a street motor.   Cubic inch of the engine also falls into all of this.  There’s not a single ‘fit all’ when it comes to doing a single port design for the heads.  For the race engines, ports are typically increased in size for upper end power but this comes at the expense of low end torque which is what is needed for low rpm running.  If an overdrive transmission is being used, then that 1800-2200 rpm driving range becomes increasingly important and heads with ‘race ports’ will not be happy in that rpm range.

 

I’m glad that John is offering the ported versions for those of us that are racing the heads but for those of you that are interested in driving the engines on a daily basis, you’ll be much happier with the aluminum heads as they come out of the box.  Although offering different levels of porting would be nice, it's just not cost feasible.  If you’re on the drag strip or in a road race where the engine will be operating in the upper rpm ranges, then ported heads will shine assuming the rest of the engine is upgraded accordingly.

Lorena, Texas (South of Waco)

At this point it may not but if there is enough demand, perhaps another set could be street ported. The setup on the CNC should be the same for either port job with the only requirement being that the program has to be changed and depending on how fancy the machine is, it may not be a big deal at all. It would take less time on the CNC and should cost hardly anything to switch the program even if it is only for one set. Automating the process will free up time for John and if it works out to be cheaper than hand porting, it's win win.


Lawrenceville, GA

CNC porting has been around quite a while and adds consistency to port work. Hand port work is done line of sight with a only few measurments that can be taken. Invariably some ports turnout a little better than others. The Y-Block lower port is so particular to the shape, height and drop off of the floor to the valve seat that consistency is difficult.

Why not incorporate these changes into the castings? Ted is 100% correct. We need to be able to sell the heads to any Y-Block owner, even if they only want them as replacement heads for a stock 55 T-Bird 292. One size fits all just won't work. The ports in the standard heads are small enough to work on a stock engine and are still capable of 400+HP on a well built engine. CNC porting is for the people who are going to race or just want more than everybody else.

Theoretically, we could make a second set of core boxes  incorporating the modified ports but then we would have standard head castings and race head castings. This would cost 1000's of dollars and there would be a limited-run premium on the race heads anyway. Plus, how many of each to order? Worse yet, what if the the foundry gets confused and casts heads with race exhaust and standard intake ports? Race upper, standard lower port?

With regard to various levels of porting it isn't as easy as you might expect. A head must be ported to that level, upper, lower, exhaust and chamber. The information must be captured with a digitizing probe. The program must be massaged to remove excess information and to join the information from the intake gasket side and the valve seat end of the port. No probe can can get the entire port from one end. So, other than the fixture work and some basic dimensions, its kind of like starting over.

http://ford-y-block.com 

20 miles east of San Diego, 20 miles north of Mexico

Sounds like a great idea John.When do you think the first batch will be ready?

THis is Keith Cornell over in NY.