Sorry Chris. I'm really not familiar with you. Maybe a quick bio. Can PM if you like. You seem to have a lot of knowledge.
Happy Thanksgiving to you, yours and the rest of the TA Family. Thank you also for what you do for the Buick family as well, even the ungrateful ones. Lol
Just thinking out loud: maybe TA could provide porting instructions to those that buy a set of these out of the box. That way if the guy wants to do the labor himself, he'd have a good road map to make them work as good as the guys that made them. Guy saves some money, TA can concentrate labor on other projects, and the heads will be out there working great.
Its not that easy, its not a case if you can pee you can do valve jobs, blend and port. That is why no other head manufactures I have ever seen have porting instructions you can destroy them in a hurry. I can not count how many heads I have fixed after machine shops and "head porters" have screw up our BBB heads. I have a set of STGse heads here right now that a "reputable" machine shop "went Through" them after they were in a flood. I sold them to the owner 15 years ago NIB ported that flowed 320's @ .600 new machine shop guru felt the guides were tight. They were not, he opened them up to .005+ on the Ex and Intake guides. He cut the valve job above 45* completely off and left a trench. His Valve was totally wrong for the head and seat run out was between .003 to .005 The heads were very close to being scrap metal. After he was done they flowed 280's and crashed @ .500 to .530 Ex was garbage every where and noisy as can be. I do not recommend it.
Well, it's exactly how I and thousands of other guys have learned how to port BBF heads, and that was 15 years ago and many many sets ago for me...being Thanksgiving and I'm not near a computer till monday and this is on my phone, I'll post a proper reply with links then.
Ok to your point then, why do you need TA to "provide porting instructions" if you know what you are doing? I have seen so many guys that wing it and do not have a flow bench make a big mess.
I agree with you, much more than you know. Watching guys just hog ports and make them bigger or gasket match them (intake and exhaust) thinking that'll work is unbelievably frustrating to me. If you search posts by me regarding port design you'll see I'm right with you. I don't think TA should provide instructions to do a max effort job where the possibility of breaking through the material is a good idea, but basic porting and pocket cleaning instructions would be helpful..... by the way, I don't foresee ever having a set of these heads in my hands, but if someone did buy them and wanted them ported for them, instructions from TA on their patterns would be more than helpful to a guy like me who has done quite a few heads before. No trial and error, so I could make them right and proper from the get go for a guy who bought a set. Hopefully that makes sense.
To my point, if TA puts instructions on how to port in the box and some screws it up the finger will point at TA as they followed the instructions. No other head manufacture does this for a few reasons, if someone thinks they can take this on then all the power to them but I can see it being a issue that would back fire on TA.
Certainly, it would have to be with the caveat (and I know some dumbass would still blame them) that if they modified the heads beyond as delivered state it is no fault of TA's. And you are correct, the instructions that I'm referring to are from a guy named Scotty Johnston (also my custom cam designer) who is one of the most respected builders of that platform and the leading porter on such stock type heads (obviously not including guys like Charlie Evans and Kaase, but they are more on the very high end of performance builds in that world, and a normal idiot such as myself wouldn't attempt to mimick what they do), and he is not a manufacturer of the heads he provides instruction on, but he provides them nonetheless....and as I said on a previous post, Scotty provided a service where you'd send him a head and he'd port a cylinder for you to copy, and you'd copy that on the other 7 sets of ports. You could also buy a cut section of whatever casting number you had and he would send you a one cylinder section of said casting number head to copy for something around $100-150. I understand the legal issues or liability involved in such things, but I guess over on the BBF world guys are understanding enough to know that if they "eff" up their own stuff, it's on them and don't blame the guy trying to help them.....as I said, this was 15 years ago. Maybe things have changed since then and maybe guys who are into small block Buicks aren't as understanding or as common sense driven as those big block Ford guys. Reading this thread, I'm getting that impression more and more.
Chris has been building 350s and 455s for a long long time. He does everything from mild builds to all out race engines. He has been a pioneer in the 455 alum head development working closely with TA. He has all the high end cylinder head porting, flow testing, and valve guide equipment and his porting results are very reputable. He sends heads and engines all over the world. The difference between Chris and most pros is that he wants to help others and share the knowledge. He spends a lot of time helping the Buick community, and I’m lucky to call him a good friend of mine. I sent him 4 core 455s and each one of them is now a high HP mill. I should round up some more cores and send them his way. He has my good engine and another one of my engines as well. He will dyno my engine after the cylinder head porting and final assembly.
Chris has a set of my MASSIVELY modified iron heads. A professional head porting company did a ton of welding and porting to them. They are now a closed chamber design. Chris also has a bunch of cut up sections of Buick 350 heads that I sent him. He also has a spare set of stock iron heads there so you wouldn’t need to ship core heads.
Another factor is the CNC porting option. Scotty Brown is currently porting and developing a CNC porting service for these heads. He will be selling TA heads already CNC ported.
Makes me a bit embarrassed because I'm half Irish. Just seems a little weird to me that a word spelled S-e-a-n that should rhyme with Dean is pronounced Shawn? Not your fault, I'm sure that name has been like that for centuries. Anyway, thanks for the invite, maybe one of these summers I can come up there for a visit? Winters are bad enough here in Michigan, not really interested on how they are hundreds of miles north of me. Of coarse I would also need to update my passport if I visit as well. Canada is around 30 miles and a bridge or a tunnel away from me, maybe when I get one of the Buicks I have ready for a road trip I'll drive one up for a tour of Canada on my way to your house?
Wow, so much drama. Honestly, I was disappointed in the out-of-the-box numbers, but I think Mike has explained pretty well that the inherent flaws in the basic architecture of the head have imposed limiting factors that can't be easily worked around in a production environment. It's so easy to forget those issues in this day and age of easy horsepower (and all the modern V8 platforms that have 30+ years of technology to their benefit).
On my set of Rover heads, I found intake and exhaust valves in titanium at a reasonable price and a set of beehive springs. The valves have to be shortened about 1/2" and regrooved (using lash caps) and the intakes had to be cut down on the diameter. The 2.02" size can be made to work but requires a good bit of extra work in the chamber and seat area and then it extends out past the OD of the seat, so I'm going to cut them back to the 1.94" size. I just don't see much of an advantage. The springs are for a Ford FE and include the retainers and locators, rated at 135 seat pressure. The valves are NASCAR take-outs and cost me a little over $200 for the set. Springs are new, something over $300. Between the reduced weight of the valves, the lighter retainers, and better springs I hope to boost the redline over 7K. A roller cam should help. Jim
