Just received my Dart 205's this evening. I can see two issues right off the bat. First, my Crane guide plates that are on my stock heads won't fit without some machining of the heads. Second, I tried the stock rocker stand and that won't sit flat either. For the Crane guide plates, the bosses for the valve cover bolts are too large and will get in the way. I can grind them down but the valve spring tool (Crane/Vinci) won't fit either because it must go over the bosses to get out the springs. On the stock rocker stands, the little angles locks on the bottom of the stand would need to be machined flat for it to fit correctly.

Not sure if I should machine the bosses to get my guideplates to fit or simply return the heads.

Crap

 

Vettenuts,,

There are too many decent heads in that price range that "actually fit" on the market now. Why spend time screwing with a set that is still not proven....

jmho

 

Thanks for giving the rest of us a "heads up" on this, many of us are sitting on the fence until more of this type of info becomes available on the most recent heads that have come to market.

Sorry to hear no one gave you a "heads up" regarding your fitment issues.

Rick

 

The heads will fit, it is just they left extra meat on the bosses where the valve covers screw in. Fine for strength, but not for fitting either my Crane guide plates or the valve spring tool. You can see in the photo below, I outlined what needs to be removed with black Sharpie and circled in red in the photo. To get my tool and guideplates to work, this would need grinding off.

 

I was waiting for Precision Porting to finish converting the Dart heads into true LS1 heads (still hasn't happened) but now I'm going in a totally different direction.

I'm surprised that you pulled the trigger on the Dart, Bob. You knew they were not true plug & play LSx heads out of the box.

Good luck on whichever way you go - and keep us informed!

Stephen

 

EG,

I can make them work, but I will need to disassemble them and do a bit of grinding. So right now I am on the fence as what to do. Although, I do have another three months of this New England cold weather and boredom to look forward to, maybe this is a blessing in disguise

 

 

Hmmm...

I have Dart 225's that I am almost finished porting. I had no problem removing the springs, but I made my own tool.

I will have to check the fitment of the stock rocker stand.

Thanks for the heads up. Not a big deal, but better to find out before re-installing the springs...

Ok, I just checked my 225's. About a minute or 2 to mod the OEM stands to fit.

I like the extra beef under the stands, but I suppose that they should work out of the box, at least with OEM stuff, but no biggy. Welcome to the world of hot rodding.

You have to see what they look like after just a couple of hours work (per head). THey look really nice IMO

 

I say send them back and get yourself some AFR 205's

Shane

 

If you do keep them, I would highly recommend a little chamber and/or port work.

I figure about 4 hours tops to completely clean them up, including valve guide work, and they come out really nice. The chambers are like mirrors after about 10 minutes work on each of them with a simple flapper wheel. The chambers came out nicer than the ETP or AFR cnc'd ones, which IMO could use a little cleaning up.

 

This is what "hot rodding" is all about. I planned on doing a little "grinding" on them anyway to get the ports and CCs looking like I want.
My wife got me a set of 205s for Christmas, and I think with a little clean up these are going to be a great set of heads.
The cool thing is, with the money I saved, I can afford a good dyno tune, and a few more "tank" refills

 

I agree with the money saved, I used it for Morel lifters and ARP head studs

RJW,

Any photo's or helpful hints on how you cleaned them up? I have a lot of time on my hands to this will make a good winter project. Glad to hear the rocker stand note helped you out. I know LPE makes a steel stand, wonder how that would fit. I do agree, the casting is more robust than the stock one and there is a lot more support for the rockers. Someone recently had a rocker stand break through a set of ported stock heads because they were too thin.

 

Thanks for the heads up onthe stands. It didn't take much, but nice to know and fix before re-assembly and installation

IF you are going to keep them, I would grind the valve cover bolt bosses to fit your crane tool, if you have a burr that will allow this without hitting the springs.You can clean them up after the springs are off. (I saw some tools on tech and simply made my own out of a piece of scrap that I had hanging around.)

I used an old set of valves from my ls1 head and simply installed them to protect the seats while working the chambers. It didn/t take much. I used up 4 flapper wheels (120 grit from h depot) and 2 rubber wheels to get into the tight spots.

In my case, the 225 chambers are a tad wider than my 3.910 gasket. You should check this as well if you are stock bore, particularly between the chambers. So I made sure not to remove any material in those locations. As with fitting any head, you should do a trial fit on the block and scribe the cylinder onto the head.

I don't have a lot of time, but I'll try to get some pics up later.

I used a dremel tool with the flapper and rubber wheels. I used a die grinder with carbide burrs to rough clean the ports and to thin out the guide bosses a little, and then sanding rolls to smooth everything out.

1 note: the flapper wheels have square edges, but they get rounded rather quickly. Use a new one to get into the corners and near the valves. Use rounded ones to polish the rest of the chamber. I didn't change the shape of the chamber or ports, only around the guides and only a little. I'm sure that there is more left in the ports, but I just wanted to clean them up. Look at a couple of hours per head depending on what you do. Also, I removed about 1 cc from the chambers, they are now at 63cc's

 

Just measured my "heart width" of the chamber, it is approxmately 3.96" leaving about a 0.030" overhang above the 3.9 bore. Will this matter in any way?

 

They may not be "plug and play" yet, but they will be. With so many F-body and ls1/6 's out there. I am also waiting on my Darts.

Shahram

 

This is similar to the problem (if you want to call it that) with the 225 AFR's on stock bore engines.

You are much quicker on the draw than I, so may I suggest posting this over on tech and see what comes out of it.

 

Here's a picture of MY Dart225 chamber after 10 minutes of sanding. The intake port is looking pretty good as well JMHO

 

I spoke to Dart about the issues so far. THeystated that they didn't think that anyone was going to run the stock rockers... They didn't have an answer to why the crane's don't fit either.

Their R & D 80 sets went to various builders, none of which informed them of this or of the combustion chamber being to large for a small bore engine.

 

I did get an e-mail from Jason at TSP today who told me he is running the Dart 205's on this car and they are working quite well.


Just found this statement by Brian Tooley:

"Just had a chance to flow the new TFS LS1 head, it has a 13.5 degree valve angle and relocated spark plug to enhance the mid lift flow with a smaller valve, these had 2.04/1.57 valve diameters. This is the most impressive head we have seen on a 3.90 bore. The chamber measures around 3.950" across, so it is designed to be optimum on a 3.90 bore."

in this thread.

Not sure I follow the reasoning behind Brian's statement as to why the slightly larger chamber cross measurement is optimum. I am confused again, but that's nothing new

 

If you take into account the rather large chamfer at the top of the cylinder, .05 or .06" is nothing. Even with a bone stock head and 3.91" gasket on a stock bore, I would say that .02 to .04" of gasket material is in the chamber and unsupported.

I imagine that AFR 225's or any heads specifically made for a 4"+ bore would require much larger gaskets and the problem (if there really is one) would be much worse.