Posting for a friend.
14102193 Thats all he gave me. Anyone know what heads these are???

 

87+ center bolt swirl port garbage

 

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/tbi/...-headflow.html

 

kdrolt has put a lot of work into assembling that thread - Nicely done.

It seems to indicate that stock or mildly ported '187 castings are not flowing much less than stock '416 heads, and are flowing better on the exhaust side.

It also shows how much variation there is in flow testing. Depending on the intake flange adapter, exhaust standpipe, chamber adapter, and tester, the results seem to vary widely. It also demonstrates the wide variability in the meanings of terms such as "mildly ported" or "bowl ported" or "cleaned up" in reference to cutting head material. I provide templates to remove any variability. Everything else is completely speculative, even if runner volumes are listed, since shape can vary drastically among equal volume runners.

In my experience, the '416s (and variants) are easier to port for good flows, and respond well to larger valves. Using the templates I have, '416 heads with 1.94/1.50 valves and 0.060" of outer perimeter unshrouding have produced better results. No one has listed flow numbers for anything like that that I have found. I cannot point to specific test results, but from memory the templates I have with undercut 1.94/1.50 valves flow 220/165 @ 0.500" lifts - The common comparison point for most head testing.

In any case, both of these heads are going to start to "run out of gas" at about 5,000 RPM since the volumes just aren't there for more HP. They are great for what they are designed to do - Make torque at lower RPM and sustain it through middle RPMs. They're not likely to support a 350-ish engine at much above 5,500 RPM, however, or a 305-ish engine at much about 5,800 and make any power in the process. If that's where you do your driving, save the stock castings for a stump-puller and look at the aftermarket for better head designs to make HP instead of torque. For many of us driving on the steet means we want power down a little lower, and the stock castings can be made to work well in those situations.

 

Notice also, how "Fast355" 's results are COMPLETELY OUT OF LINE with anyone else's, and with widely repeated measurements elsewhere in the world. No other TBI parts known to man have ever produced results even remotely close to what he claims. I'd take those particular numbers with a serious grain of salt.... maybe even a whole gravel pebble of rock salt.

Note that I'm not saying he's lying, or accusing him of fabricating them, or anything of the kind; only, that his numbers are NOT REPRODUCIBLE BY OTHERS. Which in science, for results to be considered valid, other experimenters have to be able to duplicate the experiment and get the same (or at least substantially similar) results. So even if he REALLY DOES get those numbers by whatever measurement means he's using, doesn't mean they'll translate to anything that anybody else is doing.

 

Ya know, that's funny, "run out of gas at 5000RPM" is what my machinist told me about my 416 heads when I ported them. He only laughed at me

But what throws me, is that he suggested I use "350" heads instead. But those flow #'s above (which are probably what i'd be close to, as that's what i've done to my heads, fully ported polished, 1.94/1.5 valves etc) should support upwards of 350HP right? Better than 882s or 193's as my machinist suggested... I'm thinking a "healthy" streetable 350 with a 224/230 cam should make 350HP at ~6000RPM right?
Would opening up the port volume significantly help that?

Sorry to steal a thread guys

 

Has it every occured to you that I have done alot of research on TBI builds and 90% of the world writes TBI off as garbage. The heads are looked at and tossed aside. Very few have even attempted to get results from them. I have found only 2 or 3 people that have had TBI heads on a flow-bench, nearly all of them had a little work, and I am one of them. We have found that they are not as bad as you and others have claimed for years, especially since they will make power to 5,000+ RPM when combined with a decent cam. Hell my lightly cleaned up 810s make power to 5,000 with a peanut roller. They made power to 4,400 rpm in a stock civie caprice 350 with the peanut cam and horribly restrictive exhaust.

No two flowbenchs are going to be the same. I did however flow a pair of stock 193s on the same bench for a baseline that is valid to the rest of the world. On the same flow list by Kdrolt it is listed there, along with the 9C1 version of the 193s flowed by another member. His modified heads came into the general range of what I saw on a stock pair on the flowbench that I used. Obviously there is a flowbench difference. How big of a difference, I don't know. The exhaust flow numbers seem high, even to me, but those are the numbers reported. So what if they flow a little less, the dyno and track times back up the difference in the heads, cam, and tuning.

How many TBI 350 conversion vans do you know of that ran in the low 15s at 90-93 MPH. Stock they run around 18-18.5 @ 70-75 MPH, keep in mind that they have 3.42-3.73 gears stock and my runs were with 3.08s.

How many TBI owners have spent the time to dyno their engines? More importantly, how many have even touche d a prom burner?

Dewey316, Lotech, and Dyno Don have all built similar engines, had decent results, and still run swirl ports.

Run the numbers through some simulation programs, suprise yourself on what it takes to run that strongly in the 1/4 and dyno @ 279 RWHP with only a stock LT1 roller cam.

 

HRM got 208 cfm from the intake side of the 4.3 liter v6 (swirl port) head, and 190 on the exhaust. That's very much in-line with his results, and so was the lack of ignition advance (shows efficient burners of fuel) and the dyno results if you equate the v6 to the comparable v8. Dyno Don got smaller flow increases, buut then again he said he spent very little time/effort on them.... because priot to his work NO ONE had ever ported them and posted any results. And even when he did, people still ignored what he found.

So his results are not out-of-line.

Really? Since you know this to be fact, please provide the list of names & email addresses for the people that have

(1) attempted to reproduce his work, and exactly what they did so the comparison can be done fairly

(2) bothered to post the (a) flow data, (b) dyno data and (c) track data to support/refute the data

That's already been done, see above post. Q.E.D.

So then you discount/ignore the HRM data on the 4.3 v6 build, and Dyno Don's, and HRM working on the Mopar 318 swirl port head (an entirely different engine, but one that made over 400 fwhp even with junk swirl port heads).

There's a few people on the Hotrodders forum that have ported them and found similar results. One of them wrote this:

I know everybody says these heads are no good but thats because there just spouting rhetoric that they've heard else were or are making up, I've had these heads on my flow bench and was very surprised at how well the intake flowed (better than the S/Rs could ever flow). I too had been mislead to believe that they would not flow well. I think what happens with these heads is at high rpm the intakes swirl is to much and the fuel/air become separated and power falls off. I think the intake can be modified to have less swirl at high rpm and that these heads could kick those S/R torquers butt right down the road!

from this 2004 thread:

305 recipe

Most people don't bother with them because of what they've heard (from "experts") and/or they look at them and conclude that the flow obstruction can never be overcome. Those same people may have heard that there is more to making power from heads than merely flow numbers. Lingenfelter knew this, Vizard understands it... but few explain why: the REASON why has to do with combustion efficiency.

Some of the earlier GM heads had very good flow numbers but they were poor fuel burners, and they needed much more than 36 degs of ignition advance to make optimum power. WHAT THAT MEANS is the burn has to start when the piston is still moving upwards, and that means the burn is also forcing the piston to slow down while it's still moving upward (consuming some of the power ). In stock form the swirl port heads do not flow well, but they burn fuel VERY well and that's why they run well even with the standard engine mods (cam, exhaust, CAI). And any porting exercise that can increase the airflow through them without diminishing too much of the swirl means they will still be good fuel burners AND flow well, which means excellent power. That's why, IMO, the ported 416 heads dyno'd by Dewey316 did not outpower the stock unported swirl port 187 heads heads until after 4200 rpm (proven in dyno tests on the same engine in the same car, in another thread elsewhere on TGO) because the 187 swirl port head is a better fuel burner even though the airflow comparison of stock 187 to 416 is absurd (165 cfm vs 220 cfm intake).

Vader is right when he says it is impossible to duplicate someone else's porting job unless you have access to templates, or get one-on-one help. So it's not hard to understand differences in the results, nor is it hard to understand or explain why dynos give different answers on the same car. That's why having track data is so useful, because it is very easy to look at a quarter mile timeslip and know approximately what the engine is doing based on the car mass, and the venue (height above MSL) and the weather.

So when Fast355 runs in the 15s in a 5000+ van, I know that his engine would run in the low 13s in an Fcar... and THAT means he is making the power he observes in his chassis dyno sessions. And why his dyno data, and flow data are reasonable in view of what others have done/measured/posted in relation to using junk swirl port heads for semi-performance street use.

Finally he is doing the decathalon-equivalent on TGO: he ports heads, he builds/rebuilds engines, he races a van that's a throwback to the van-era of the 70s, he works the dyno, he does extensive ECM work... and we are fortunate enough to be able read his posts. I haven't the time to do what he is doing but I am certainly grateful to be able to read about just the same. FWIW.