[ponjohn]

Be an awesome option for boost.

[Formulas]

Iron creates HP because of heat ???

Watch the episode of engine masters where all they did was swap iron for aluminum same head manufacture exact same casting mold and specs runner volume chamber size and shape they even flowed them and the iron flowed a touch more 1-3 cfm from memory chalked up to manufacturing tolerances

The aluminum came out marginally on top with dyno power then add weight savings on top

Because sometimes i went to pic a part in a non truck i ended up with 10 sets of heads and only 5 blocks, it was easy to stuff heads in a trunk

[Sirrotica]

One other tiny venue for that head would be street stock style race cars, because most sanctioning bodies do not allow aluminum heads in the lower classes. I say a tiny market because 98% of the GM bodied cars use a SBC in those lower classes, and because the sanctioning bodies recognize that GM offered the SBC in just about any GM body after 75.

You'd have to be a dyed in wool Pontiac fan to run a Pontiac engine in those classes. Myself included, there were a few Pontiac fans in NW PA that opted for a Stratostreak powerplant.

World Products, All Pro cylinder heads, in Ohio, even Speed Master, Dart, Trick Flow, and Summit sells their house brand of cast iron SBC heads for these classes, but they have a very broad customer base to sell to.

Most all the classes allow no port work, so your ports had better be top notch as cast.

Just for grins I looked up D port KRE aluminum current prices, $870 for one, or $1740 per pair 65 cc, for a bare head according to their website. For the 74, and 85 cc versions, they're $945 each, currently.

Maybe the cast iron idea isn't far fetched.

[mach flyer]

You can color me in for a set, would love to have a new set of performance iron heads !!!

[Vroom_vroom]

A new casting for a Pontiac iron head is going to cost more than or the same at best as the aluminum. The cost of starting that operation is tremendous. World and everyone else making sbc heads has the base of people wanting them (and the years of doing so) to spread it out over. If this where to ever actually get picked up it would be due to an executive having a soft spot for the ponchos. Financially it is a big stinker.


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[mgarblik]

One thing for sure, there is passion in this topic. I especially appreciate the negative posts and the reasoning for it. This has been a pet project of mine for a long time, but I am not going to take it on myself. I just need feedback like this to gauge where we are every couple years and appreciate the exercise. Couple of thoughts gleaned from the comments. Casting numbers and stampings and car show guys. Local shows, not an issue. High end restorations, they need OE PMD heads. Round port are the wrong idea IMO. Biggest issue is little to no availability of round port exhaust manifolds. Most of us may not live to see another run of round port long branch iron manifolds. Heads would need to have all the accessory holes used in the 1970's. IMO, heads like these would be great for the bolt-on power adder crowd. Weight is not a show stopper for most of this market. Aluminum in every variety is available if it is. I think the detractors make some excellent points however. Possibly the remaining potential customer pool is really too small. Time may be past for these. Lots of things to consider. BTW, the last time I gave this project serious consideration, iron SBC heads were available complete for $500.00, ready to bolt on. This was in 2019. Boy have prices increased.

[Elarson]

One significant advantage of cast iron heads is much more stiffness than aluminum; which translates to better head gasket sealing. They would be a good choice for a power adder application that wants or needs stock-height heads.

Eric

[b-man]

Round port exhaust manifold production would be way more worth putting effort into than a cast iron cylinder head.

Even with the shortage and people waiting years for them to get back into production there’s still what seems to be little motivation to get those kickstarted again from the companies who already have developed and marketed them.

Another case of small profit margins and low sales expectations. If those manifolds ever make it into production again you’d better grab yours because it’s doubtful there’s ever going to be another production run.

On the iron heads, it’s never going to happen unless someone’s able to sweet talk a huge casting house such as World Products, much like what happened when Arnie was able to get Vic Jr. to take a chance on the first limited run of the E-heads. Wouldn’t have happened if Arnie and Vic Jr. weren’t friends.

Edelbrock was big enough to absorb the loss if the Pontiac heads didn’t pan out. World Products is more than big enough, it’s just a matter of someone with stature in the Pontiac world bending the right ears in order to have a chance of making it a reality.

In the end you’re not going to have an entry level price on a reengineered iron Pontiac head, it will be either 10% cheaper or maybe more expensive than an aluminum equivalent. A non-starter for those who think they’re going to get them on the cheap. If someone does make them you can bet on them being priced high to recoup development costs as soon as possible.

Please don’t look at me as a detractor as I’d love to see it happen. I’m trying to look at this realistically and I just feel it’s not viable.

[Schurkey]

Not in the market. If I'm buying cylinder heads, I'm looking for aluminum.

First Guess: You'll be lucky to get them for $800 EACH, never mind for the pair. They will likely cost more than the common aluminum heads.

The likely way to get a reasonable price on them will be to source them out of China or India. And then the consumer have to remachine the entire thing, like guys are doing with bottom-feeder crankshafts, and bottom-feeder cylinder heads from the existing manufacturers.

But, hey--I've been wrong before. I think the best we could hope for is to convince the folks in Vegas to have the down-under foundry make them (Toowoomba Metal Tech). They do a reasonable job with the Chevy heads; of course the Chevy heads sell in amazing quantity, the tooling/foundry cost can be amortized over a much-larger production run.

[Formulajones]

There was a thread like this a couple years ago with a vendor involved gauging interest.. That never did go anywhere. Cost I think was a killer.

Basically if they did something like this the only way I'd be interested and I know others feel the same, is if they made good clones of the heads that are currently unobtanium like anything round port for instance. 722's and 614's especially, not to leave out the 455HO guys either.

I wouldn't be even remotely interested in anything D-port, those are still a dime a dozen, found pretty easy around here.

[Formulajones]

Top that with the fact anything done this day and age would probably come from ching chong anyway so I'd have to spend another $1000 on machine work to make them right.

May as well rebuild 50 year old heads at that point.

[mgarblik]

r

Originally Posted by Formulajones

Top that with the fact anything done this day and age would probably come from ching chong anyway so I'd have to spend another $1000 on machine work to make them right.

May as well rebuild 50 year old heads at that point.

Good points. Castings might have to come from a foreign location, but in small runs, possibly a US foundry looking for work. As the economy contracts, US based business looks for smaller orders to fill the gaps while waiting for recovery and government/large orders. Agree making a piece of crap iron head is not solving a problem, just making a new one. Making an iron replacement for a very rare casting number or a round port head seems to be a non-starter. Taking a tiny market and splicing it up into a potential market of a couple hundred people would be death. If 10% of those folks bought 1 pair of heads, that's 40 heads total and probably would be less. Round port cars are valuable and most are not driven much. Owners are pretty locked into wanting OE vintage iron for the auction/show crowd and not really using the cars to race or drive much. The handful who are have the choice of OE or at least 3 round port options in aluminum. This is why a D-port "replacement" head is being discussed. In Ohio, at least, to get a pair of iron heads up to the flow rate of out of the box aluminum heads you are looking at $4000.00+. Taking core iron D-port iron heads and just refurbishing them back to their mediocre stock performance is at least, $1500.00. That's thermal clean/blast, 16 new guides, 16 new seats, screw-in studs, proper valve job, bowl clean. Proper resurfacing (no porting) Still left with 50-60 year old iron castings with internal erosion.

[Elarson]

If I had lottery money and wasn't worried about the business case, I'd start a project to cast a "service replacement" cast iron 455SD head clone.....no fake casting codes or date codes. And then I'd finance another big run of the factory cast round port manifolds. There's a chance they'd be a great seller but I wouldn't go in debt to gamble.

FWIW:
Eric

[PAUL K]

One of the reproduction companies lost a lot of money trying to bring iron round port heads to the market about fifteen years ago. They were going to be USA made in Texas. Then they spent a lot of money with the legal system trying to recoup some of there losses and keep that company from continuing to scam others. That foundry only produced some impressive samples and promises but never a product.

Butler Performance tried to do the same. I believe they cut their losses before they went in to deep. If anyone wants to take on this project I'd recommend they deal with a specialty head company that is already familiar with performance iron castings and machining. If it was easy everyone would be doing it.

[mgarblik]

This thread is getting some attention from other Pontiac people who don't post here often or at all. Just got off the phone after a lengthy conversation with Pete Woodruff. (Of Norwalk. Ames Performance Nationals fame). Some of you may not know that he has been an NHRA Technical Inspector for many years and is an expert on Stock and Super Stock classes. He has some important insights concerning this topic. Most important is NHRA racers who wish to run Pontiac engines are in great need for iron cylinder heads. So much so that some have had to leave our Tee Pee to race other brands of cars because good, unmodified cores are simply not available, period. These racers would need an iron replacement head that could be approved by NHRA for stock and super stock racing. This head MUST have the following features. 1. stock looking appearance
2. stock valve sizes 3. stock combustion chamber shape and size 4. stock runner volumes 5. straight spark plugs 6. D port exhaust.

What would be the market/advantage for a head like this? New castings with material and wall thickness. Ready to assemble and bolt on without machining. Material available for a CNC port job without worry of breakthrough. Legal for class racing in NHRA. Bolt on performance for power adder street cars. Iron block, Iron head, 10 head bolts = great sealing. Likely somewhat lower cost? Just something else to consider.

Why not round port, Ram Air II, IV, HO or SD? Pete says racers have found these engines fit in top classes only where competition is fierce. Due to already inflated HP ratings and factoring by NHRA, D-port Pontiac engines would be much more competitive.

[Formulajones]

Again that's just playing into a very small market as you stated referring to my post wanting round port heads. There aren't a ton of NHRA racers with Pontiacs vs other brands, that's just a very small corner as well. Hell we can't even seem to keep drag strips open anymore.

The only way you're going to appeal to the classic car market, which is a larger portion of the buying public, is if they offer rare or hard to find round port castings. D-ports are everywhere, we've got enough D-port stuff in our stash to last us a life time including a generation or two after I'm gone. Round port stuff......not so much.

Lets face it, the Pontiac hobby just isn't as huge of a following as other brands. I consider ourselves lucky to just have the few aluminum offerings that we do.

I've gotten content to just disguise aluminum round port castings anyway well enough to fool the casual observer and looks the part well enough to satisfy my taste for appearance.

[Formulabruce]

I would assume Hardened Exhaust seats installed?

[Sirrotica]

I have to agree with round port logic, I beat the bushes for decades searching for round port heads at a reasonable price. I was rewarded with a pair of 722 heads, and a pair of 197 castings, that reside in my garage.

This was before aluminum heads were available (late 70s, early 80s). The 197s are stock, the 722s are done as well as possible by a friend of mine that worked on Ron Hutter's flow bench. Everything that could be done to them, without welding on them.

This was about the time my daughter was born, and life got in the way of building the next dirt track car. Those heads have never been on an engine as of yet. Likely, they would fall short of the flow of a set of unported aluminum heads.

My thought would be that the ports, and chambers, were similar to a new set of aluminum heads, but the outside could be close to a set of OEM heads. The OEM numbers could be added by welding, or epoxy. that would give you a larger pool, if the outside was generic, and casting numbers could be added.

Mike, would these have angle plugs, or not? Angle plugs would void restorers using them, but probably be a necessity for a good chamber for performance buyers, a double edged sword.

The problem being is, you can't make just one product to cover the whole hobby, and 2 products would likely be unthinkable in this economy. One product is going to be hard enough, let alone two.

When I was running my T shirt business, this was the same type of subject that would come up. What T shirt design would appeal to the very most Pontiac people/customers? We ended up with 15 different designs, offered in 3 colors, and 5 sizes. T shirts at that time, cost about $8-10 each...........

[Goatracer1]

I'm no expert and I have no numbers to back this up but I feel it's the average guy with a stock or slightly modified engine that wants/needs a new iron head. Some of you seem to have a stock of good iron heads. Most of us do not. There are lots of Pontiac heads for sale but most are low performance and almost all that I have looked at are junk. It would cost more to rebuild them than they would be worth rebuilt. As for round port heads, there are not enough people who NEED a replacement iron head. Most racers will use an aluminum head and there are not enough restorers of round port cars to be of any value.

[Formulajones]

In our realm, from what I've been involved in, you really don't need a round port car to have the desire to build a round port engine. Just looking at all the round port Eddy heads out there on Pontiacs as an example.

My goal has been to take my 70 Formula, (which never had a round port engine offered) and build a nice stroker deal with 614's on it. Just for my own fun. A what if.....

I'm content with disguising aluminum which is likely the direction I'm going, so if a company came along and made the iron head a reality, it would have to be a pretty damn good example of a round port or I'm just not on that train right to start with.

I agree, all the iron offerings out there will need attention and money spent. That's just the nature of this deal when working with heads that are 50+ years old. I'm spending $1000 to $1500 to completely rebuild factory iron heads. So I'm not the least bit interested in new heads that need even more attention because they have cheap hardware, seats falling out, etc....So it's going to have to be a really good quality piece offered, or again, I'm not getting on board with it.

As far as performance, a D-port is a D-port in my eyes, they are all going to flow nearly the same within a few percent no matter what the casting number is, and they all have the ability to be cleaned up and improved upon.