[slowbird]

Seems like a lot of negitive assumes going around based on one pic of a completely unmachined head.

[Ron H]

With the last few years of wet flow tech and changes being made to spark plug positioning, I'd think Edelbrock is up to speed. But who knows for sure until they are run.

I think Jim is going to bring a great port and piece to the table. A couple other porters will as well.

This head is cast so that anyone can get what they want out of it. When stuff is made to order so you get exactly what you want or need, it costs more than something off the shelf where compromises are made.

It will be a top shelf head that can be made to run in any combo. We all know there is no, one size fits all head, that will do it all or even be efficient with most combos. There are plenty of other, on the shelf heads, that can perform for those who want to go that direction.

[Tom Vaught]

Originally Posted by slowbird

Seems like a lot of negitive assumes going around based on one pic of a completely unmachined head.

Not being negative at all about cooling around the spark plug hole.

It is a known FACT that the Ford Tunnel Port heads crack there, OFTEN.

That being said, doing your homework on a previously cut-up head would give you a lot of piece of mind, unless someone was afraid of the answer.

JMO

As I said before, Edelbrock has been casting up heads for Pontiacs and other brands for a long time without spark plug cooling issues.

I have minimal experience with wet flow testing but many years of experience with dry flow testing. I will leave the wet flow stuff for the experts.

Tom Vaught

[BruceWilkie]

I'm pointing out that the ground strap could be exposed to far more heat in that location than if further from it. It can point to the exhaust I dont see that in itself an issue. I just think if the plug and ground strap are closer to the intake valve the ground strap will get cooled some by the cooler charge near it.

So... which would be more likely to get the ground strap glowing? Cooled some by fresh intake charge in close vicinity? Or have the ground strap exposed to the higher temps in the vicinity of the exhaust charge?

Plenty of good heads out there with plug pointing toward exhaust but I dont recall seeing any with the possibility of putting the ground strap too far into the exhaust path.

But hey, I havent been approved to be knowledgeable on matters of preignition. So if you want to ignore it, who am I to stop you? Never said my opinion was expert merely making comparison to other good heads including some raw pro stock stuff out there.

Sorry I've noticed something!

As they appear in these pics it seems a tid closer than you might want it.

So... maybe a picture of the chamber with the correct reach plug and an exhaust seat and valve in it might clarify this better. Espeacially better clarification if a chamber gets roughed in more.

[Jim Robertson]

Interesting discussion. Always trying to better our program...Do you have any pics of the raw pro stock stuff you referenced? Who's castings and what timeframe? Obviously we have what we have on these as far as water jacket and plug placement but we will investigate if performance does not come around or something weird happens.

At this point the one intake port takes about 365cc of liquid rubber to fill it...that is without the valve seat installed/machined. Not sure of the exact length of port but these are at least 1.2" longer than a Hi Port.

Exhaust ports look fairly good from here and fully expect them to work well with the intake ports.

[BruceWilkie]

I'll see if I can post some pics Jim. Think I might be able to find some useable pics.

I do realize the pro port appears to have the plug in near the same, if not the same location as other perfomance E heads. However, while it seems fine for the perf e's, which dont have any quench on the spark plug side of the chamber, you have what appears to be about a 1/2" of material for a spark plug side quench and the angular trajectory carries the plug tip to what might now become a bad place for it to be. Final chamber shaping may correct for this, I cant say for certain. Dont know whether chamber shape or plug relocation might be the better way to go. Just see from present pics that there are things there that may drastically alter the behavior from the standard heads.

Everyone...
I AM NOT making my comments to BASH this head! So, those that think otherwise would do well to investigate along with me vs thinking its me vs them. I'd rather see that a possible issue doesnt occur. Tracking down a preignition problem is far costlier after the fact than hopefully preventing a possibility in the 1st place.

Would my detractors prefer I said nothing and sit back later and say "I thought so"? Or point it out later IF problems arose? I hope not. I noticed this some time ago, and to be honest hoped someone else did, and would point it out.

So I finally decide to hell with it, I better point out what I see before someone goes thru money and effort with a possible issue that might bite them. And certain people want to make politics of it? Just brilliant! Ignore the source because they're not on some "approved list" of people to pay attention too!!!

Just because I have a personal preference for a different head design does not mean I dont think other designs cant be used effectively or that my preference should be everyone elses. What I prefer doesnt blind me from using something else thats working as well or better!

I prefer to share and obtain knowledge not play politics. Prefer to help prevent or be helped from things that might cause others or myself issues.

There is another board for those that want to be political vs helpful in the quest to help the Pontiac community. Suggest you go there and stay there for stick in the eye games!

I'd prefer you stay here and try to be helpful when someone sees something others dont.

[65nss4spdGTO]

Originally Posted by BruceWilkie

I'd prefer you stay here and try to be helpful when someone sees something others dont.

Bruce,

I for one appreciate other opinions as long as they are based on real world knowledge and experience. We noticed the placement of the plug location, but since a final chamber shape and valve placement isn't complete, we decided to just continue development.

Again, we see other issues with the head, some we will overcome. Every cylinder head is a compromise is some shape or form.

Calvin Hill
Hill Performance / Mondello Tech Center
708-250-7420

[BruceWilkie]

Putting aside the chamber placement relative to the bore. Look at where the plugs are on all these heads relative to the exhaust/intake valve. Notice on the M6049SC1 and M6049E1 the plug tip will not likely get as exposed to the ex valve flow path and chambers combustion heat path. They are more biased to the center closer to the "cooler" intake side. First glance they look similar but they arent.

My bigger concern would be exposing the ground strap to more heat than needed.

pages start around 112 in the pdf file http://www.fordracingparts.com/2011-...0Catalog_A.pdf

[Lloyd-TX]

Hey Dan - any idea when you might have this casting in hand?

[bryansMtngto]

definitly looks like plug position is alittle different between the E head and the Pro Port IMO. I see what Bruce is worried about. Will have to wait and see what the guys that have them say as they get them finished up. 1st pic is an E head 2nd is the pro port from below.looks like the moved it deeper into the head which is putting it closer the the exhaust valve.

[cfmcnc]

The plug angle creates a little bit of a delusion as the totally flat deck shows the plug very exh,bias consider the angle its drilled at when the chamber is finished machined it will exit into the chamber further away from what the picture shows.Bill C.

[BruceWilkie]

Originally Posted by cfmcnc

The plug angle creates a little bit of a delusion as the totally flat deck shows the plug very exh,bias consider the angle its drilled at when the chamber is finished machined it will exit into the chamber further away from what the picture shows.Bill C.

Thanks Bill, Hopefully it will exit closer to center chamber but the thread path shown in jims pics makes it appear it could still end up far closer to the exhaust than center chamber. The closer that ground strap gets to the exhaust valve the hotter it is going to get.

Maybe it will simply require a short reach plug to make it safer once all is done.

The link I posted earlier has pics in the pdf file from the Ford catalog not as clear as jims but you can see the chamber/plug location on the dual quench castings are more biased to center chamber exit. Sure there is more than one good reason they chose that way.

[Daniel Barton]

Originally Posted by BruceWilkie

True Dan, it was an un-needed sarcastic humor remark to someones un-needed comment about the "right" people. Doesnt mean I'd rather not have felt compelled to deliver it. I really DO prefer to keep the politics out of technical discussion.

So back to topic... Is this plug location what it appears to be? Will it be a non issue, something to be aware of when finalizing the chamber? Am I having optical delusions?
I dont think KRE's or CV's plug placement is quite the same. Seems they are more centrally located and bias the tip toward the exhaust(ok) but still put the tip further away from the heat of the exhaust path(IMO better). Standard E heads arent dual quench like these. Wouldnt want someones plug groundstrap turning into a glow plug.

First off no, I dont think the plug is going to be where you think it is, keep in mind that the plug hole is at an angle and once the chamber is done it will probably be a half to three quarters of an inch up that hole where the plug will be peeking out, I really had no intention of commenting on the plug location until I have the casting in my hands but it appears you are choosing to make a big stink out of this before anyone seems to have gotten that far along with this head casting. I think when people are farther along with this thing, at least as far as having the chamber roughed in, would be the time to bring this up, normally when I have done a head like this with no chamber in it they also dont have a plug hole located and we have done that last trying to get it as close to the center as possible. Im glad that people have decided to continue posting in this thread because it appeared to have been killed for a day or so... I really dont intend to comment anymore about this casting until I have had a chance to get it and spend some time with it.

[BruceWilkie]

Dan I'll look forward to your hands on eval. Might have a hands on look myself soon.

[Jim Robertson]

With NGK R5671A plug seated. There are 3/4" of threads on that plug.

[65nss4spdGTO]

Here is a picture of our worked chamber and the port entry.

Calvin Hill
Hill Performance / Mondello Tech Center
708-250-7420

[potentpontiac]

Calvin. Will you be able to provide some flow #'S at this point. Very nice looking Intake port. This is a 12.6 degree head? Chamber volume?

[slowbird]

Calvin, what valve sizes did you go with?

[goatracer]

Well, after looking at a finished Pro Port chamber, I guess Bruce's question/concern was legit, huh. The plug location has clearly been moved towards the center of the bore/biased towards EXH. Now, what effect this will have on a running engine has yet to be seen.

I know other brands use this design as well. What are some pros and cons to this update?


Bryan

[BruceWilkie]

Jim, Calvin thanks for the pics. Personally I'd prefer to see the plug tip exit closer to center chamber for reasons I've previously stated. I would assume the water box around the plug would make it difficult to change it much from where it is now. My gut says plug indexing might be helpful.

Yes this may never actually occur. I'm hoping it doesnt. But I felt it worth alerting others who may have been/be focusing more on port development 1st than the final chamber. I/we will have to trust the proffesionals opinion/testing on this.

My related experience(2 stroke, hemi chamber, centered plug, no valves, not plug placement related) with preignition, tells me live testing is going to show if what I suspect could/will occur or not.

Lots of factors involved. Having a hot spot ignite the mixture as the piston is in vicinity of BDC compression causes rapid failure. Compressing a burning mixture overcomes the piston's ability to draw heat away and will lead to a hole in the piston long before you can react to any sound.
You DONT hear a detonation rattle. It starts at/near bdc not rapid brief shock of detonation. You hear your motor stop at 8000, maybe bang at same time, maybe catch again with power just gone! Occurs faster than you can read the 1st two words of this sentance.
Been there, seen it, helped cure it, after collaborating with a pro who was seeing same intermittant issue on what turned out to coincidently be an identically modified "stock rules"combo. Our case we had exceeded a power level beyond anticipated ability/use in the design. Our conclusion...the heads couldnt pull the heat way from the plug and/or head fast enough(suspect both). We found an already existing cooling mod for another motor was adaptible and ultimately it worked.

Problem didnt occur every pass. (in fact had a "minor" occurance after a breif decell and return to throttle once)
Nailing down the cure for a nasty intermittant problem can be costly if not just time consuming. Testing was challenging. CHT gauge on the plug didnt react fast enough and yet read safe before/during/after. Plug inspection when there was no failure gave no evidence, no speckles, no melt, nice strap etc.. An inpection after a fail had a melted plug covered in sprayed aluminum. Adjacent plug just fine. Hole in center of piston and aluminum sprayed everywhere. EGT was found to spike simultaneouly at/with failure. Safe before failure. (EGT quick response probes early racepak monitor) Best clue was more often occurance one side than the other. Slight detune with thicker head gasket or rich tune allowed no occurance but counterproductive to having an edge on your competitor.

Again I truly hope this possible issue doesnt occur and bite anyone.