Studebaker head modification

[zenndog]

This is a project I have been working on, disregard time references, I thought I would see if you guys would be interested

StudebakerV8 Head Modification

Here are some photos of some modifications me and my friendRich are considering doing to the heads on my 259.

 

 

 

Our plan is to put the engine in Rich's Studebaker pick-upand try to go faster than 139 mph which is the record in E/PP, I think.

 

 

 

This head was brought to us by Jack Vines who just boughtRich's Packard stuff, I think the head was given to Jack by another Studebakerowner who goes by the handle of jallen on the Studebaker drivers club forum.

 

 

 

We are starting on the exhaust side. Have received much inputon the SDC forum. Here are a couple of pics from today before my camerabatteries went dead :(

 

 

 

Donor Head, couldn't read casting number very well

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rich bolting it to the mill

 

 

 

 

 

 

Head on the mill, making certain we have enough travel

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then my camera batteries went dead, Rich is supposed to sendme some pics. I will post if/when he does. I will post some more pictures ofhow we cut the ports by next weekend either way.

 

Here is the picture from Rich with the first part of themachining done

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hope you enjoy the pictures

 

 

 

From the SCTA, the answer is no, the explanation stated thatyou have to run an OEM head. Hmmmm. Maybe we will call and ask about bolting onOEM parts, but we may just have to stick to porting only. For now, here are thepictures from this weekend.

 

 

 

Rich finished the last port during the week

 

 

 

 

 

 

Birds eye view of the exhaust valve seat

 

 

 

 

 

 

Center ports, notice the crud in the water passage?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Casting wire still in the head

 

 

 

 

 

 

I cleaned up the edges of water passages with a dremel and agrinder using various bits. The main goal was to clean away loose material

 

 

 

 

 

 

Notice the hole in the front corner, those were small pocketsthat were just peeping through. One for each port. I drilled them to 9/32 andtapped for 5/16 fine thread.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is the center plug shaped out of cast iron, and a boltin the hole I described above ( sorry for the blurry photo )

 

 

 

 

 

 

Plugs and screws ready to glue in

 

 

 

 

 

 

Glued, next the head needs to be re-machined

 

 

 

[zenndog]

I have more to post but my photos won't load anymore

[DRIVEN]

That's nuts!

[zenndog]

Next phase

 

 

 

Head with patches machined flat, Rich did this during thelast two weeks

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rich also machined three pieces of angle iron flat on everyside, one for each exhaust port.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is a picture with all three in place

 

 

 

 

 

 

The head is bolted to angle plates on the mill so theadapters can be mounted with machine screws

 

 

 

 

 

 

Picking the spots to locate the holes for the screws

 

 

 

 

 

 

First hole drilled, tapped and countersunk

 

 

 

[zenndog]

Second hole drilled, tapped. Starting on third mounting holewhich turned out to be too close to where we planned to weld the port onto theangle iron. Mistake! Good thing this is a test

 

 

 

Me, working on the center adapter

 

 

 

All screws drilled tapped and installed, preparing to drilllarge holes for ports

 

 

 

Large drill centered in exhaust port before drilling roughhole into adapter plate

 

 

 

 

Drilling rough hole in adapter, now it has to be ground out andshaped

 

 

 

 

Locating the head bolt holes, then we would reinstall the adapterand drill the hole for the head bolt. These were done one at a time.

 

 

 

 

Head bolt holes all drilled

 

 

 

 

Test ports, Rich is going to make the flange this week, ornext. Thanksgiving is coming, we don’t plan to work next weekend.

 

 

 

 

From the side

 

 

 

 

[zenndog]

Here are some pictures of the intake side. WARNING! If youare squeamish then stop reading now. This may not be for the weak of heart.Just kidding!

 

 

Intake mod requested by Jack Vines, he wanted the intake runnerremoved. I haven’t smoothed anything yet, this is as milled.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is the start of my experiment. Cutting off the top ofthe ports to see if I could raise the ports up/open them up. There is more workto do on this side but if inquiring minds want to know…here it is.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That’s all the stuff from the intake side so far.

 

 

[zenndog]

The Saga continues

 

 

Here is one of the exhaust ports cleaned up with the adapterflange mounted. This will probably be the only one I will finish off so Jackcan test it. There are two pics.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is the port with the tubing held in place, another twopics. Now I have to weld it in place, Rich is going to machine a flange to weldon the top. Again two pics. ( I was originally considering doing something likethis on the intake side, coming in under the rocker arms straight towards thevalve, tried the pictured way instead. I became a little timid, for somereason, about the water jackets. )

 

 

 

 

 

 

NowI need to go

[lil89ram50]

how are you planning on torquing them headbolts now?

[zenndog]

Trying to port, realize that I need to get some more tools,specifically the longer ones. Either way, here it goes. These are rough still.

 

Jack’s intake so far, two pics

 

 

 

 

 

 

Notice the difference in the top of the port, two pics

 

 

 

 

 

 

Looking down the intake

 

 

 

 

The intake and exhaust seats, Mikes pictures helped showwhere I might want to go and also how far I am still falling short, and needingmuch, much more practice

 

 

 

 

In one of the pics of the intake port above you can see thelip behind the valve seat, I filled it with JB Weld for the flow test.

 

 

 

 

That is all for now.

 

 

[zenndog]

Here we go. Well....in my mind today was a very straightforward cut a step around the ports, fit the aluminum block, and tap some screwsto hold the aluminum block in place kind of day.

 

 

Started off like this

 

 

 

 

Block fits, so far so good

 

 

 

 

Little more milling....

 

 

 

 

Nice!

 

 

 

 

Another view

 

 

 

 

Good right? Well Rich came over from working on his 26 Dodgeengine and we talked a little about the head. I mentioned that I wished I couldpush it a little farther.....to try to get over the valve more. Rich said, justdo it on one of the ports, it is now or when?

 

 

Point taken

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

New end mill in mill, cut on sir, cut on

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At around this point I started forming the notion that ifactually doing this modification to a head to run, the block would go longways,and probably incorporate the rocker shaft monut/headbolts. This block wasn'tlong enough and I decided to keep it "simple" ( :lol:, simple..yeahright ).

 

 

 

 

More cutting, the cut is moving farther back toward the valve

 

 

 

 

 

 

That is as far as I could move it, the spring pad is rightthere now, and I think some guys here are cutting larger spring pads for theirvalves so they can use larger springs right?

 

 

I machined the aluminum block to fit, needs just a littlemore.

 

 

 

 

That is it for now. May be a week or two before more updates.

 

 

Found some time to tinker today

 

 

First off, here is the valve angle, hardly scientific with my$10 angle gauge but......

 

 

 

 

Looking down the port before starting. I finally pulled outmy carbide bits with the 6" shafts, the one I think I needed to use themost was bent and useless, but onward we go

 

 

 

 

I took a minute and trimmed the back of the aluminum block tofit into the cutout area of the head snug

 

 

 

 

I ground off the guide and shaped the top of the port the wayI want it to be headed when it meets the part of the port that will be in thealuminum block. here is a view looking down the port

 

 

 

 

Then I placed the aluminum in the head and sprayed someprimer in the port to mark roughly the area I will need to cut out on the nextvisit to the mill

 

 

 

 

I simply wiped the primer out of the port with a rag, here isa view with the painted block in place

 

 

 

 

It was a little disappointing that the small"pinecone" carbide pit was bent, but I will do some work during theweek with the other bits which seem to work fine.

 

 

[datzenmike]

...... just, wow.

[bonvo]

more!!!

[phiz]

I think I read about this on a ratrod forum awhile back. Pretty cool stuff your doin...I knew a guy that ran a tub o' Lark with a 259 that would run high 11's at the strip.

 

PS: A '58 Apache set the E/PP at 130.629 last August.

I love salt. :cool:

[freekwonder]

So for somebody like me that doesn't know what is going on, what's going on? lol. I mean I see what you are doing, but what and how is it suppose to achive?

[bonvo]

building a better flowing head

[zenndog]

Here is a link of a similar head modification for an AMC head. Don't know the history unfortunately.

 

http://www.yellowbullet.com/forum/showpost.php?p=7729182&postcount=134

[datzenmike]

I believe you can safely remove the intake valve guides right down to the port for better flow. As I understand it the exhaust run much hotter and need the guide to draw away heat. The guide could be stream lined. In addition the exhaust has a lot of energy and unlike the intake will want to get out by itself. Intakes need as little resistance as possible.

 

[zenndog]

Messed with the tubing port idea a little today

First off I went and bought some hardware to make a tool to try and bend the port easier

 

 

Well that was a waste of time, my cheap little vise broke so I couldn’t hold the bolts to drill them the way I had planned on the drill press. So after looking at craigslist for a while at vises I took out these tools and used one of the bronve bushings with vice grips and the hammer

 

 

Here are some pics of the piece of tubing I “squished”

 

 

 

 

On the head, trying to figure out how I want it to fit

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I need to make the tubing narrower at the “back” so the bottom of the port heads toward the valve. This tubing may be too large but I will continue with it for now.

[Farmer Joe]

so is this just going to be one one-off head, or a pair?

 

this is super interesting in my eyes... i wanna see what your doin with this..

[zenndog]

Some more on the head

 

Filled the lower part of the intake runner, glued in a small section of "roof" shaped from a piece of tubing

 

 

 

Began to play around with the shape of the port made with tubing. Made a different for the top and the bottom, just to try it.

 

 

 

 

Shaped the back of the top.

 

 

Lets just epoxy it in and see how it works out

 

 

 

 

I will shape and fill the back of the port with epoxy once it dries in place.

 

 

Thats all for now.

[zenndog]

so is this just going to be one one-off head, or a pair?

 

this is super interesting in my eyes... i wanna see what your doin with this..

 

This is a test. To see if the flow cam be improved. Since I started this I have had two sets of Stude heads donated to me. If this head flows well then I plan to make a set. I am pretty sure I can make a better "port" after all this trial and error. By better I mean consistant enough to make 8, the number needed for one pair of heads.

 

This started as an experiment for a Bonneville engine, but the rules prohibited it in the class i wanted to run. At this point a bunch of Studebaker guys are curious and I am having fun.

[zenndog]

Here are some more pictures from today