Little Mouse

Sometimes having less torque is a good thing when your skating around on street tires, tons of torque broke loose and spinning is worthless,
then if you have an engine thats finished at 5500/6000 rpm then where do
you go. A 4.250 stroker like lr172 is building will no matter what cam have more torque down low. I would rather have a 4.00 stroke big
block pulling to 7,000 with power over a 4.250 stoke enigne only pulling to 6,000 any day of the week. In fact if I were running around on street
tires I would purpously build the engine to drain off some bottom end
torque keep power up higher. He also has 3.70 rear gears not 3.08s
where lower rpm torque might be of more of use.

sly vette

How about adding a fifth gear on that 5500/6000 rpm power plant....just for discussions sake??
mark

427Hotrod

I'm with the general consensus to sell the 074's off. Check the F.A.S.T. guys...Factory Appearing Stock Tires. There are several folks building L-88 Vettes and they have to have those heads for rules.

Best way to check springs is to pull them off and use a spring tester at the machine shop. You can also test them on the head with a special tester.


I've run that Crane cam too. Trust me..the other two I listed will spank it. I constantly changed cams in my 427 over the years. I think I ran just about ever .550-.630 solid flat tappet that was out there from Crane, Comp, Isky and others. When all was done, the .580/.600 Crane was the best all around one for fun little street motor that needed to run 11's. I have it's 266/276-.600/.620 big brother on the shelf that I occasionally throw in the 540. I ran one of them in the 427 for a long time too...but it was with 4.88 gears!


Travis' motor pulls like crazy up top. It's a good basic 427 with out of the box aluminum heads. With traction and gearing it will run 10's on pump gas.

No need to build motor home motors...these are toys that are supposed to excite you when you mash the pedal!


JIM

Little Mouse

lr172- I picked up the winter copy of Engine Masters they built a
496 street engine to go in a chevelle. They used a scat rotating kit.
Kit came with cast steel crank, I beam rods, forged SRP pistons,
(SRP 18cc dome 10.2 compression with 118 cc heads) rods were made out of 4130 steel not the 4340 I beams you are looking at, kit also came with JE Pro seal moly rings and clevite bearings. They bought the Kit at Survival Motorsports for $ 1268.00. I have not read enough of the artical yet to find out if they used the external balance 4.250 crank or the 4.250 internal balance cast crank you gave me the Part # of.
The heads they used are 320 runner RHS $1800.00. intake manifold
edelbrock performer RPM. carb 850 mighty demon.. cam a comp cam
hydraulic roller Big ***** Thumper with a tight 107 LSA, .050 dur.
243/257, adv. dur. 299/319, lift 570/554. 626 HP at 5900 RPM
635 ft lbs at 3800 RPM.

rings in the kit were file to fit.

Without reading the whole artical I would say they used the tight LSA cam because of the low 10.2 compression the fact that they were putting the engine in a heavy chevelle, may be an auto car to.

Call scat see if they have a rotating kit using the internal balance
crank and preferably the 4340 grade steel rods you showed me the part # on. They will tell you on the phone you can buy it cheaper
other places them them. when I called them they suggested
www.competitionproducts.com. As long as you have the part #
for the kit you want lots of places to shop.

Scat Enterprises phone # (310) 370-5501

I forgot to mention the rotating kit they checked it for balance, it was only two grams out of balance, thats good enough for the low
rpm street engine you have in mind.

Engine masters Ragazine, winter 2007 edition, volume 11, NO.4

Little Mouse

Remember the posts where we talked 409s a little, I mentioned I
wished a big company like edelbrock would make a reasonably priced head for the 409 besides Lamar Waldens $6000.00 remake of the 1963
427 Z11 heads. (427 Z11= 4.312 bore X 3.650 stroke 409= 4.312 X 3.50 stroke) well I went looked at the ragazines picked up a copy of street rodder, in the new parts section, edelbrock for 2008 has came out with
a remake of the 62, 409 hi po heads. Vic JR must have read my mind.

lr172

Thanks for sharing your experiences here. I see your points and it sounds exciting. If my bottom end tops out at 6500, should I find a cam that falls off somewhere just above that?

lr172

Thanks for pulling this together! I will call Scat on Friday and see what I can put together.

Little Mouse

lr172 your probably drooling over those 626 HP, 635 TQ figures
if you use your factory heads those figures are going to drop,
you have to run it with your exhaust system, your building
a big air pump hope you have a really good exhaust system.
Hydraulic roller would be efficient at low rpms but very costly.

They completley blueprinted the engine, the pistons were
one thousand down in the hole, they had .178 clearance
on the valves so if you end up with the same pistons you
you could go a little higher on lift.

don't just slap on a .040 thick gasket, no decking on your
block pistons are going to be down further.

jackson

I think I heard mention of that just last nite during BJ auction on speedtv ... gosh I wish they'd quit focusing on personalities so much ... stick to the cars.
- add (don't see a chamber volume?) -
PERFORMER RPM 348/409 CHEVY HEADFOR CHEVY 348 AND 409 ENGINES
Designed for 1961-1965 Chevrolet “W” series big-block engines, these new Chevy heads retain the original port locations and valve angles for bolt-on convenience with improved port design for more performance. They feature hardened spring cups, screw-in rocker studs and hardened guideplates, 220cc intake ports, 90cc exhaust ports and stainless steel 2.190" intake and 1.720" exhaust valves with 11/32" stems for improved flow. Available bare or complete, the complete heads include 1.55" valve springs and accept valve lifts up to .600".
Performer RPM 348/409 Chevy cylinder head (complete)#60819
Performer RPM 348/409 Chevy cylinder head (bare) #60809

here's a site with some helpful W motor stuff:
http://www.show-cars.com/numbers1.htm

Little Mouse

I know a trucker been friends for quite a few yrs he has a 409
just a truck engine had it forever, he had a 1973 chevy pickup
pulled the 350 out put the 409 in it even fabricated up his own
brackets for the altenator a/c he's a damn good welder, he ran it in the pickup awhile it spun a bearing. I have tried to buy it from him to
get the block, but he wants to just keep it hand it down to one
of his sons. As a kid in the 60s I think I sang the song to many
times she's real fine my 409. I would like to build one to just have
something different. I have read up on 409s looked at there good and bad
points the truck heads only had about a 2.07 intake valve smaller runners
then the hi po head, standard lower hp passenger car 409s had the same valves
348 I believe was the same. The heads only have 10cc of chamber volume around
the valves, the deck is cut at a 74 degree angle and the piston has a 16 degree
angle cut on it, for a 32 degree almost all of the chamber down in the block.

The mains are only about 2.50, I wonder if the bore spacing is the same
as a regular big block a later crank could made to work. I notice Lamar
Walden has stroker kits for around 467 cubes. Kind of sounds like a 4.00
crank with the 4.312 bore. If I could pry this 409 from my friends hands
I would still want it to perform decent not just be for looks, thats why
in another post I was complaing to 427 hot rod about no real affordable
heads for them. I have noticed another company making a set but they seem to
be new, edelbrock has two aluminum foundries been making heads for a long time.

TheSkunkWorks

I'm pretty sure 409 heads are flat, the combustion chamber volume a product of the volume not taken up by the piston at TDC.

jackson

Dunno squat about W motor except I always liked look of unique valve cover.

I saw these two references for W ... dunno how correct:

bore center 4.84"
deck height 9.6"

-add- virtually No chamber volume ... flat heads ... aftermarket 409 heads pictured here:
http://www.bruneauperformance.ca/409...07upright1.jpg
angled 409 piston pictured here:
http://www.bruneauperformance.ca/abr...409comp111.jpg

Little Mouse

They are flat but there is a tiny amount of area around both valves that makes up a 10 cc volume in the head all the rest of the chamber is done down in the block. Damn pistons weight a ton. In the early 60s
the drag cars even though the engine had a 3.50 stroke big 4.312 bore
should have been a rever the pistons were so heavy even with solid cams they were shifting the 409 at 5800 in low gear and 6000 after that. even with big impalas 4.56 rear gears they were down in high 12s.
not bad for early 60s. A person would really need to have custom
lighter pistons made use a longer rod, modern thinner rings and come up
with better heads. Lamar Walden makes a remake of the better raised
runner 63 head. but he wants $6000.00 for the heads, the manifold is a two piece, lower part he wants around $1100.00 upper around $1500.00,
im not rich enough to pay that or dumb enough to pay that much.
the stroker kit he has is around $2500.00.

lr172

I think that I will try to sell my heads. What size heads should I consider for this build? Should I still be tracking a 10.5:1 cr with new heads? I can only find pistons in 18, 20 or 34cc configs.

427Hotrod

Be careful with those magazine HP numbers too. That particular motor only ran 11.70/113 MPH when they put it in the Chevelle. It hooked great on slicks...but no HP to carry it through. They are trying to figure out what's up? I can tell you what it is...it don't make 626 real hp!!

They also did a buildup with a 496/505 with GM stock rectangular ports along with a good fairly serious Isky solid flat tappet cam. It made just under 620 HP too I think.


409 stuff is cool. Neat to see new heads out there for them. Years ago it was common to use the W motor cranks in regular BBC's in ProStock. Got short stroke and big bores of 4.500 blocks for high rpm screamers. Think Reher Morrison here.


JIM

lr172

Do you have any suggestions for a new head size for this build and 6599 RPM range? Should I be looking at Rect or Oval? Any suggestions on size? Is Iron OK to keep the budget in line or do I need to keep with Aluminum.

Thanks again for your guidance.

Little Mouse

Have you put your heads up for sale ??

TheSkunkWorks

IMHO, I wouldn't go putting a typical oval port head on a ~500 cid BB that's intended on pulling past 5000-5500. There are plenty of rectangle port heads out there (such as the 305 AFR's mentioned earlier) which will support more power without having velocities drop to a point where driveability would likely become an issue. You'll have a better high-perf intake manifold selection, too.

And, remember, the better the head, the less cam required to get the same A/F volume into the cylinder, or the more A/F volume can be delivered by the same cam...

Little Mouse

The 305 as cast AFR heads $2100.00 would be a really good head
for your 496, comes with springs for a roller cam, springs may not
work for what you want.
Dart has a 308 runner iron heads DRT-15100111= single spring
DRT-15100112= dual spring, there around $1475.00.
Summit has a 308 runner iron head, I suspect they are the dart heads
using summits name, SUM-152125= $1292.00

Finally looked at the www.flatlanderracing.com web site, looks like they have a scat rotating kit, 4.250 internal balance cast steel crank,
6.385 4340 I beam rods, forged SRP pistons, 10.2 comp 118cc
chamber head. you can make 10.2 work with iron heads but it
seems like a real shame to go from nice light aluminum heads to
heavy iron heads.

www.summitracing.com

If your convinced you can't sell your heads for enough to buy new aluminum,
you can pull your heads apart look them over and run them. build the shortblock
the way you want it add modern heads later down the road when your more bucks up.
Even if you have to spend a few dollars on them you could run them for say a yr
get some use out of them for the money you spent on them. they will always be
worth the same amount later.

lr172

Thanks for the tips here guys. I have not put the heads up for sale yet. I saw a couple on ebay that went for near $2K that are in my condition. I think that I will try to sell them as I build the short block. If I get $2K or more, I will buy new heads. Otherwise, I will just lap the valves (I had no leakage during my leak down test) and put them back on and upgrade next year. I did some research today and a spoke with a knowledgeable shop. They recommended the AFR 305's and the Brodix Racerite BB-R's (Flow = 337/217 @ .600). He said the racerites don't flow quite as much as the AFR's, but they are more standard (same head bolts, same exh. height, etc.) and come in 115 cc, which would help me get my CR into the upper 10's. I have searched high and low and cannot find a dome greater than 20 cc for this combo, without jumping into the 30's. Do you guys know much about the Racerites?

Little Mouse, that is the rotating assembly I have settled on. I will go with either the SRP or KB pistons. KB seems to be the only one available in .040 over and I don't want to go to .060. I feel comfortable this will take me to my 6500 RPM goal. If I go for new heads, I think I will spend the extra to go with aluminum. It seems that I should be OK in the upper 10's CR with AL.