The fog clears... Edelbrock head mystery solved.

Most volume manufacturers have shifted away from inspection towards a focus on process control, meaning once the manufacturing process is set up, you just need to ensure that the process is in control in order to yield good parts. That's the theory, it doesn't always work that way in practice (ever hear of Takata air bags?). Edelbrock clearly has a relatively high-volume set up based on all that equipment shown in the video. They must have made the judgement somewhere along the way that the tolerances from their production process were good enough. Doesn't sound like there is customer/expert agreement on that point though.

 

With all due respect..

We have wondered, in this day and age, how the concentricity could be routinely so poor with these heads. You almost have to try to be that bad, and why it's so inconsistant seat to seat, in the same casting..

This video gives the only credible answer to that question. I don't believe this is a QC failure... not anymore.. they are not doing the process. I don't buy the idea that they just happened to skip the dead piloted seat cutting, when they did the video.

I have bought bare castings from Edelbrock, and from a price standpoint, they don't want to sell them.. they are nearly as expensive as finished heads. Can't buy the parts at WD and be anywhere near their complete assembly price.

Bare Castings come with the "finished' cut seats and the same size guides that you get with "assembled" heads. The first time I took a "Bare casting" out of the box, and compared it to a disassembled "complete assembly" casting, I could not tell the difference. The idea that those were what they considered "finished seats" in the bare heads crossed my mind, but I dismissed it as too crazy to believe.

When I buy bare castings from TA, I get square seats, and guides that are .002 or more undersized.

The fact that they can not cut the seats after install, and get concentricity within .010, speaks to how good the machining processes are, but they still come up short of what is universally accepted in the Performance Aftermarket.

JW

 

Agreed! (I knew someone would pick up on this)
That was maybe 20 years ago, for a cylinder head line subcontracted from an OEM castings producer. They were out of print (an entire semi-load).
My only point in bringing that up was to show that a seat cutting machine would add very little cost to the line, in terms of machine burden rates and 'value added' type metrics.
The general idea is to engineer the lines and processes to the point of foolproofing everything.
I forget the catchy Japanese term for this age old thing...maybe poka-yoke from kaizen events?

 

Agreed!
I wouldn't worry so much what their process is so much as recognize what the finished product is.
I still see Lean Manufacturing and ISO compliant plants that do just enough to fake out their global trade partners, like put on a dog and pony show for a walk through, then go back to business as usual... :grin:
[I've seen a contract manufacturer tear a bunch of their long running jobs out of the CNC's to set up a specific customer's PN's even though there's no current production orders a couple days prior to the prescheduled walk-thru JUST so it looked like there was more focus on their product lines]

It's frustrating when they have all of the equipment and mgmt processes available and drop the ball when it doesn't serve to help a single thing.
You can kinda see what's happening when a machine sits with the door open, not running and an operator is deburring a part because he can't complete the bench work within the machine's cycle time...(maybe just for camera?)
The process engineers are guilt free with their stopwatches but the workforce is probably abused and tossed under the bus, and everyone butts heads at shareholder meetings when the simple answer is to program the machine to deburr the part and further foolproof the entire system.
[not entirely a great example from this video but a real world one I've dealt with a bunch]

The CMM inspection is probably being done to qualify new setups or at shift intervals, or verify features after a machine crash, not as reliance to any process the cut and pasted video might or might not be showing you.

 

I can attest to seeing firsthand a dead piloted cut seat being off as far as mentioned, with a careless operator.
(not the OEM or factory environment I've described, but a local type machine shop with the best of equipment, with a good twenty year + run of many engines like that. They have a recognizable name and are blameless)

The way I've seen the most often is when they true the machine to only one intake and then cut all the rest including the OTHER head in the pair without simply taking the ten seconds more per hole to float the head! No BS.
You can measure the deviation and sometimes see it get worse the further away you get...except that one hole.
Then they do the same with the exhaust, lol.
If the guide is loose enough, it will still seal @ .004" TIR, so that will cover up the usual deviation found with cheap valves themselves not being true to the stems.
Scary.

I cannot attest to what Edelbrock actually does, I'm just commenting as to how it's possible that ANY place having the right stuff might still mess up.

[FYI, I strongly support the patronizing of family run and smaller companies such as TA that take the time to ensure their products are well made and supported after the sale, and probably know their small staff of workers by name]

 

There be crazy people about. This video made its way to a Buick related Facebook page where some guy that claims he helped invent those heads is busy defending them. Looks like he's an admin or something because he deleted some peoples posts that didn't agree with him. Wonder if he's a member here?

 

I would only buy these heads from a buick vendor that has checked things out and knows them inside and out and performs the necessary mods..
Ray

 

That was my thought - Pretty amazing. Maybe that's what they're thinking too.

 

Not anymore, he was banned... I am a member on his Facebook page just for the entertainment! If he sees this, he will ban me, too. He is one strange dude...

 

That guys a nutjob and runs everyone down that doesn't agree with him. Little dictators exert power over their little kingdoms to compensate for lack of a usefulness. Best steer clear of that one. You are warned.

 

His hatred for Mike Garrison,Brad Conley and I on facebook is amazing..I have never met the guy,but when you point out inaccuracies to him he is defensive and hateful..He has names for this forum as well as the other sites. He has blocked me and I am good with that.I don't need or want his childish or arrogant behavior in my life anyways. Scott White needs some help..And I don't mean with Buicks!

 

Sorry, I didn't mean to "stir the pot" by posting the vid. I just couldn't understand why a person would let $4-600 stand in the way of better et's and more power.
So he proceeds to list out how to save $400 by buying the Chinese BBC stuff off eBay. Hey, I'm no stranger to eBay or saving a nickel or dime but I pretty much want to buy once and buy right.
I guess I'll get the axe too. Oh well.

 

I dont have a concentric checker , would luv to get one, I hand lapped all the valves on my TA heads with fine compound and found them all to have a very nice pattern . I have never seen heads come hand lapped, Which i believe is the seeing is believing method. Then after assy pour carb cleaner above each valve and see if they leak, I imagine you would be surprised to see carb cleaner raining down on your bench with your nice new ELDB heads!

 

I wont comment on the eddy heads, but when we started back in the 80's,90's we used Kenne Bell, Poston, Ta and Torque Tech.Had good luck with all of them.If Edelbrock had the same exact head as TA now, and TA was selling it for 300 dollars more, I would still go with Mike and TA.Mike went out on a limb to make parts for the buick guys back then when Edelbrock didn't have a head.I like to save money like everyone else, but we wouldn't be racing buicks if it wasnt for all of the old vendors .

 

Wow, by the looks of this I should go light my POS engine (or at least the heads) on fire. It's cool though, I like being a third class citizen, somebody has to do it!

 

Come on Shawn, it's not like that....

Just want the folks to know what the deal is...

At times, for a Buick guy wanting Stage 1 Alum heads, Edelbrock is the only option.. I have been there..

JW

 

Out of curiosity I wonder how many people have had failures with the Buick Edelbrock heads and what the main failures are?
Sounds like this is a common problem.o No:

 

Very informative Jim. You lay out the why and the possible consequences well.

 

I thought this was old news. It's the reason any third party seller has stock of "bare" heads and finishes it themselves.

There's a YouTube video by a Tom Rockwell race cars that demonstrates the exact same thing with afr heads complete with QC sticker.

I imagine it's a product of mass production more than anything.

I didn't realize bare now means finished seats though. I would have been upset to learn that the hard way.