I sure hope that's not true. For every one guy bickering in this thread, I'll bet there are 10 of us waiting on the edge of our seats to see what you can do with them. Either way, I'll be buying a set as soon as funds allow.
I have stayed out of this discussion honestly because of the amount of biased criticism makes me sick when I read it because of how much effort I put into these heads, and I'm sure a lot of other feels the same way. I can't believe how much negativity there is towards these heads, especially considering how much it was demanded that we needed to create aluminum heads for the 350. I think it is unfair that the standard the heads are being judged on is taking a stock low compression engine and swapping the heads expecting a huge power increase. That's ridiculous. No one is going to put these heads on an engine without at least swapping the cam, and if they have low compression pistons I would be advising them that they need to bump up the compression to make power, just like I do with big blocks. We went very far out of our way to make sure that these heads were as versatile as possible. When we started the project, rocker compatibility wasn't a huge factory in the design of the heads. We wanted to build heads that corrected all of the weaknesses of the factory head and provided ample opportunity for people to take them as far as they could. We had no idea if the existing rockers would work or not on the heads as things were being changed that would affect compatibility, and we figured we would just have a new roller rocker setup made for the heads, like the Rovers and V6 SE heads. We moved the valve locations so that we could fit larger valves in the heads. We raised the spring pads so that there was enough material there so people could port the heads and make them a tall port head, and so we had a better valve selection (better selection=cheaper valves versus having to have custom valves made). But as time went on, our production costs kept going up and customer demand shifted even further towards cost being the biggest determining factor in a purchase. So we paid closer attention to rocker arm fitment, and made adjustments to ensure that existing rocker arms (stock, and roller) would work on the head. We feared that if we released a head that required a new roller rocker arm set, that customers would be furious that they wouldn't be able to reuse their existing rockers, and had to invest an additional $1000+ on rockers on top of the heads, which could hurt sales. Believe me, we're lucky that the geometry came out correct and everything lines up and works as well as it does, and that all it takes is a Rocker arm fix kit to put the exhaust roller rocker right over the valve if you want. Then, on top of all of that, we decided to try to offer an even more affordable alternative to our shaft mount roller rockers for guys who have a stock setup now, but want to build a more performance oriented engine; Chevy style stud mount rockers. That was hard, and vert time consuming ensuring that the rocker arm geometry was correct. Whereas with the shaft mount rockers, to calculate the geometry you only had to worry about 2 dimensions, with the Chevy you're working with 3 dimensions, which became exponentially more complicated, considering none of this was in the original plan. Other major improvements over the iron heads include the modern day combustion chamber design, which is MUCH MORE than just cc's. It's the shape and contour of the chamber along with spark plug location. Our pattern maker that designed the heads fixed an Arias head design a few years back, and all he changed was the combustion chamber shape and spark plug location and they picked up over 75HP. So there is more to it than just the cc's. We raised the valve cover rail so when you pull the valve covers you don't end up with oil running down the face of the head. They have an improved water jacket over the iron heads. The water goes all the way up around the valve spring pockets on iron heads (weight and $ savings) which ends up with air getting trapped in those areas because they're higher than the water ports on the intake face. This contributes to overheating. The aluminum heads do not have this issue. There is more material in the ports so you have the freedom to port them for higher performance and not walk on egg shells while doing so. Regarding the comparison between the 350 heads and the Rover heads. The port in the 350 head started out as the port in the Rover head. Then we had to narrow it, make it taller and change the shape to get it to fit in the 350 head. The port in the Rover head is wider, and has a more clear shot at the intake valve, which contributes to it's performance. The port in the 350 head is more narrow, and has to jog hard around the pushrod hole, which is what hampers some of it's performance. There's nothing we can do about it, that's the 350 Buick design. We can't move the hole over anymore because then the intake bolt will break into the tube. So we have thought about moving the bolt hole, and then moving the pushrod hole, but this would require everyone to slot the bolt hole in their intake manifolds (it's no longer a bolt-on ordeal, and the average customer don't want to have to deal with that) and it would require new roller rockers with a different offset. To take full advantage of this change would require offset lifter and rocker arms because then we could really move the pushrod hole. We “didn't hold the 350 heads to the same standard as our big block heads or even the Rover heads”. Really?? We devoted more time and effort into the 350 heads than any other cylinder head we have made. We tried to incorporate as much into one package as possible, and spent A LOT of time trying to think of every possible thing we could incorporate or change. To prove how false this statement is, there's changes we want to incorporate into our big block and V6 heads from what we did and learned from the 350 heads. Suggesting that we intentionally made a “subpar” product to coerce people into buying 455 parts is beyond ridiculous. No one in their right mind (or even insane) would spend the amount money and time that we did to do that. I lost track of how many late nights and weekends we spent at the shop discussing and researching ideas, testing theories and working on development. Most of it all was on our own personal time, as between the hours of 7am-6pm we're working on business related tasks, ie. things that are headed out to customers. So to suggest that we didn't try to make as good of a product as possible is an insult to myself, my father, and everyone who helped us create these heads. I understand that the biggest complaint is out of the box performance, that the aluminum heads don't flow enough CFM over the iron heads out of the box. Comparing the gains between the 350 heads to the 455 heads is an apples to oranges comparison. They are completely different heads/engines. The 350 is a very small and compact engine, so there isn't nearly as much room to work with as you have in the big block heads. We cant physically fit a better performing port into the heads. The 350 also has a very small bore, which is going to affect it's performance potential. A larger bore pulls harder on the port. We were able to fit much larger ports into our 455 aluminum heads, but it has the bore and valve size to take advantage of it. Even LS1 heads have larger bores, and much more optimal port layout. That's the difference, it's all about the overall configuration of the head. The whole design has to work in harmony, and we did the most with what the Buick engineers gave us when they designed the 350. Hopefully with the feedback that I get from people who port and play with the heads, I can update the patterns to produce a better flowing port out of the box. Why didn't we incorporate a "max effort" port right into the heads so that they don't need clean up? Because that's a difficult thing to do, and doesn't always turn out how you expect. You have to account for shrinkage, core shift, and making sure you leave enough material so that the heads machine and clean up properly. There is room for improvement as we learn more as time goes on. And just for the info, on 455 heads, if we incorporated a max effort port into the head, the port would be so large it would kill the air speed and wouldn't perform well for smaller cammed street engines. It took years and years of modification and improvement to get to where we are with the big block heads, and that all came from enthusiasts sharing what they learned with us. The only reason the 455 aluminum's flow what a ported iron heads does out of the box is because of what everyone learned as they played with the heads. When someone ported a set of heads and got really good air out of it, we shipped the heads to the shop, flowed them, studied them, pulled plugs of the ports and sent them to the pattern guy to incorporate into the heads, so the next castings were better out of the box. The 45 heads didn't perform like they do from the very beginning. If you didn't know, the 455 aluminum heads started out using the original GM tooling. We made a new tool and incorporated the first tweaks into those new heads (lets call them V2). Then as people raced and played with those castings, we incorporated what we learned about V2 heads into the patterns and created V3 heads. The cycled repeated itself a few times until we are here where we are today. We're literally at the very beginning of that chain process for the 350 heads. You have to have a starting point to improve from. Hopefully as time goes on and people play with the heads, they will share what they find with us so we can continue to improve them. But if no one buys the heads because they have this expectation that they should perform like the 455 heads, that will never happen. Sean and Chris are a part of the first step of the evolution of these heads. They are constantly messaging me ideas they have, and then following up to let me know if it worked or didn't. We need more people to start playing with the heads and providing feedback. I can't do it on my own, it's just dad and I. We're a small, tight nit community, and we need to watch each other's backs and help each other out. Instead of criticizing the product, help me make it better. I wish you all and your families a Happy Thanksgiving, and truly appreciate your support as we wouldn't have products like the aluminum heads and SP3 without it. I hope you all enjoy the holiday. FYI, the car is on the road. I've been driving it on the weekends and such. Haven't had a chance to take it to the track yet as I only got it running about a month ago for my wedding, and have been busy with other projects on the weekends since, so I hope to go racing soon.
Understandably so. Maybe the cylinder head police will offer up an apology. Congratulations on your marriage and here's wishing you the best at the track!
The TA sycophants here are WAY to easy to trigger! No one here wanted to have a real conversation about the not so stellar out of the box no porting numbers and if they would actually make more power or not on just swapping the heads on their already assembled engine that didn't use parts to compliment the new head design. That's all I wanted was a respectful conversation on this long awaited new product. All I got was "you're not seeing the potential" blah, blah, blah porting blah, blah, blah you don't know what you're talking about because you aren't a head porter, blah, blah, blah nonsense and refusing to back up what TA wrote about the 30 HP out of the box on most engines. Well, thank you MikeJ for the response, it was very informative a lot of the info I was looking for, I apologize for getting a bit "insane", it happens sometimes when I'm getting blasted and in one instance for not even mentioning the 350 heads.(I thought Canadians were suppose to be nicer than that?) I apologize also for looking at these and comparing them from your evolved line of products, I didn't know the history of the others. That product history and evolution would make for some cool reading from your downloadable catalog, even most of this post I quoted would be a good read in your catalog.
Thanks for chiming in Mike, I think it was much needed. Congrats to you and your beautiful bride! (Did she lose a bet or something???!! How did you pull that off??? Haha, kidding, kidding). Derek, with all due respect, in regards to your "blah blah blah" comment, I think it goes both ways. To many folks I think saw "in theory blah blah blah, I think they should've blah blah blah, what they should've done based on my reading blah blah blah" without you having put up any real hard evidence (as in physical heads you tested, modified, proved in real world performance). I don't know your history of accomplishments in building buicks, and I'm not questioning your knowledge as I am no porting expert by any means, but from a constructive criticism viewpoint all I see from you is reciting theories and recipes that sound really good, but have you actually done them? Please dont take this as confrontational, I'm genuinely asking (since I and others likely don't know) to help steer you into providing proof to back up your knowledge so we can give your comments the validity they truly deserve. Again, not trying to pick on you, I just think that's why you may have gotten some push back, as you yourself have indicated (in not so many words) "the proof is in the pudding". So share the "pudding" you've made to help validate your input and in my opinion your comments may be met with less skepticism. Or don't, doesn't really matter what I say in the end anyway, just trying to help quell the pitchforks and torches and maybe bring the this thread down a notch. Haha
If anything, all this bitching back and forth has made me wish I had the funds to build the 355 block sitting in my garage collecting dust. Had I not gone down the 455 hole 10 years ago and focused on the stock 350, I would definitely be getting a set of these to play with. Oh well. I’ll get me some Orville Redenbacher and sit back and watch.
Do what I'm doing and find an excuse to build another car! Haha. Seriously though, all the back and forth aside, if these were out when I did my 455 build for the green car, I probably would've stayed with the tree-fiddy. I'm working on a new SBB powered car now (details forthcoming, but it involves pressure!), and hope I can produce the scratch for these (I didn't have a kid during the green car project....)
I wish I could swing another project car, lol. Trying to get my current one up and running before my first kid comes in May
Man, been there and done that so I feel ya! When I was doing the "Project Rusty Hulk" I knew what was on the horizon, and it required a lot of time and diaper money! Worth it though! (The car and the kid. Haha)
In the bold, yep you're right Shawn that's why I sent it back to the original blah, blah, blah posters. I didn't start the blah, blah, blah, looks like from your post that I may have done a better job of it though? Shawn(the way Shawn should be spelled by the way) do you think Mart was able to build his sbb stroker without my help, and look how he treats me.(I even gave him the set of rods that is in his engine now that I did the machining to make them work, for free, I also did all of the ball honing on his slightly used block for him, with MY ball hone) I have also helped Ivan's machinist figure out how to make the nascar take outs work in his engine. I also helped Jeff(racerxjj67) prep his slightly used block with oil mods, ball honing and assemble it, no-charge either. And I didn't even get a thank you from either one of those guys for the help a gave them. In the past before that I have assembled some BBB 455s and a couple each sbb 215s, 300s and even more 350s, and many, many off brand engines. I'm not a head ported because I don't need to be because I have access to one of the best head porters if not the best in Michigan that knows where to find the air flow to make power. He actually touched up Mart's heads and improved them from where they were from his ok for a first timer home port job. They picked 10 to 20 cfm flow throughout the whole range, that he only did a entry level porting on them and a valve job using his Serdi seat and guide machine. Even though I am not a head ported myself, I have been around this stuff for a whole lot of years and can look at a flow chart from a set of heads and can guesstimate real close what kind of power to expect to get knowing the other components that are in that engine.. This stuff isn't rocket science, its actually quite rudimentary stuff that's been around for over 100 years which I have been playing with for 40 of those years, starting from helping my dad with his cars when I was 13 all the way to now. As for doing some engine building now, I wish. The sh!7 storm that is my life right now is keeping me away from the fun stuff but the storm will hopefully be letting up soon? It didn't help that my little brother that lost his leg in a motorcycle accident a couple years ago just had a massive heart attack! Its a miracle he is still alive, it was the "widow maker" blockage that he had that they were able to treat with that balloon thing and a stint or 2. He's only 45 years old!
Mike, I hope what I said wasn't misunderstood. (That reference to bolting 350 heads to a low compression engine) That was in reference to the Rover heads, which as you know have a much smaller combustion chamber, and I seriously think it'd be a good idea for you to look at that combination. Obviously it wouldn't work with the 350. Jim
Sean is the Irish spelling and I invite you to come up to Canada, I’m not hard to find just follow the smoke to my igloo.
I just want to say that this thread is extremely entertaining, whether informative or not. We are all lucky we are able to own and afford our project cars, at any level. Please remember that, not being able to afford a pair aluminum cylinder heads, does not qualify for "tough times," as I read in an earlier post. If you all spend even half of the time working on your cars as much as you do talking about them, I'm sure there will be plenty of continued progress made for sbb 350 performance! Having said that, I do appreciate all of the helpful information in this thread and on this forum. Happy Thanksgiving to all!
TAMikeJr.. Love how the suit matches the car!!! You did not deserve such a punch in the gut with this thread..
