R Model Heads, Cam and Intake

[pbf777]

Scott, I bought my TVR in Dec of 68. 

     Maybe I wasn't paying attention, but do you still own it?     

     If so, please put me on the list of people to call when you do tire of it, as I would truly enjoy the opportunity to aid in relinquishing my fellow man of his worries.   

     Scott.

[shelbydoug]

All the Brit's '60s cars are tight. They're all made for Jockeys.

There's a scene in a film, the title of which I don't member at the moment, with Clint Walker climbing out of an XKE head first.

He is a little bigger then me but I am the size of an "average' NFL linebacker, so the image isn't lost on me.

Ken Miles might have been the optimum size for these "things". Even Gurney, who is taller but of slight build, like a fighter plane pilot is, was squeezed into the cockpit of the 40's and needed more headroom.

I found that in my Pantera, a quick release steering wheel does help with egress and work under the dash. Of course it can't correct the twisted spine that you get from having the pedal box offset to the center to accommodate the cars wheel wells.

The Europeans really don't like to accommodate even average Americans for sure.


289 Cobras with roll bars push the seats just far enough forward to make it tight whereas the 427's are just about 3 inches longer which helps tremendously.

Remember though that it was "Shelby" that had the US 427 cars extended for more room.

[JohnSlack]

It is interesting to me, that those small block GT40 heads from the '60s race program never showed up in aluminum? The 427's did. Why not the 289's?

Aluminum was not exactly a new material to the industry. GM had an all aluminum 221 way back in 60 or 61. That engine design they sold to Rover who continued to refine it.

The killer is Ford GIVING the racers like Nicholson aluminum blocks.

     I believe the 427 alloy heads were a desperate attempt in a weight reduction program for racing as was the other alloy blocks for say Nicholson, and it was understood that the long term durability expected in production instances where cast iron was utilized and well refined to provide this expectation, was not anticipated, nor would any of these beneficiaries really complain.     

     In the case of GM's Buick 215 & Olds F85 engine one nail in its' coffin may well have been associated with the difficulties GM endured with the poor castings and their propensity to develop fluid leaks.  In era, a friend who was a mechanic at the local Pontiac dealer said that on these they had been advised to fill the cooling systems with straight anti-freeze to try and halt any water induced corrosion coupled with the casting porosity causing leakages.     

     There just was a lot yet to be learned in the casting of aluminum blocks & heads.   

     Scott.

   

Scott,
I disagree with a whole heart as far as the learnings of casting aluminum. FoMoCo, General Motors, Packard, had all had a huge compressed education 20 - 25 years earlier in making some of the highest quality aluminum castings desired ever. Thousands upon thousands of very high quality castings. In fact I have looked at the quality of the 1960s automotive castings and just shook my head. There were even thousands of magnesium castings that just indicate to me that possibly the auto makers weren't yet ready to make durable alloy castings.
John

[TA Coupe]

Hey John, talking about magnesium reminds me of going to Mickey Thompson's shop in Long Beach back in the eighties and seeing a magnesium 327 Block and I went over and picked it up with 2 fingers. I ended up buying a stroker short block from him and that building had some amazing stuff in it like one of the Bonneville cars up on a rack and pallet loads of boss 429 heads and blocks.  He had an engine dyno there that had been turned into a shock dyno Room. I had my choice of buying the stroker short block or a complete tunnel port 302 that was from the carbs to the Pan. Nowadays I wish I would have bought the complete motor as either one was $1200 at the time.

     Roy

[pbf777]

     There just was a lot yet to be learned in the casting of aluminum blocks & heads.           

I disagree with a whole heart as far as the learnings of casting aluminum.

     I suppose the context of my statement was not really that the O.E.M.s were not knowing or capable of how this woulda, coulda, shoulda have been done for best results, that without the automotive industries fervent practice of sometimes excessive cost-cutting short-cuts, bad practices of manufacture, perhaps less than idea materials; and rather as a comparison, most people in this country know and are capable of healthy diets, but that doesn't mean they practice it, and others often will say: well, one day maybe they'll learn!          

     And in the mean time, for those who haven't, please choose an attire that doesn't exemplify your walrus rolls!     

     Scott.

[JohnSlack]

Hey John, talking about magnesium reminds me of going to Mickey Thompson's shop in Long Beach back in the eighties and seeing a magnesium 327 Block and I went over and picked it up with 2 fingers. I ended up buying a stroker short block from him and that building had some amazing stuff in it like one of the Bonneville cars up on a rack and pallet loads of boss 429 heads and blocks.  He had an engine dyno there that had been turned into a shock dyno Room. I had my choice of buying the stroker short block or a complete tunnel port 302 that was from the carbs to the Pan. Nowadays I wish I would have bought the complete motor as either one was $1200 at the time.

     Roy

Hey Roy,
Magnesium parts, wow FoMoCo had gone down some limited production rabbit holes with that material. I ran into a couple of 494 magnesium blocks and an FE magnesium block in my adventures in shops in So-Cal. My biggest miss was when I went from Chevy to Ford big blocks. I stopped by Zeuschel's to see if he'd sell me a side oiler block for my first Cobra Jet car. He'd sold all 40 something of them that had been on pallets in the back of the shop the day before to "Big Del Massino" the boat racer. They were still physically there.....they just weren't "Z's" any more. "Z" used to tell us about the toys he'd see over at "Trickey Mickey's" including an experimental spring free valve train compressed nitrogen cylinder system that Dave witnessed Mickey run. All I can tell you was there were a lot of brain cells in the room when those two were in it.
John

[shelbydoug]

I think that largely for Ford, lightweight materials was experimental and as such had limited manpower dedicated to it so to speak?

Much of Ford's developments came out of the "Deuce's" edict to beat Ferrari and  needed development or maybe "perfecting"?

I find some of it disappointing but I say that in hindsight because I know where it all would originally wind up.


Some of that disappointment stems from the "not invented here syndrome" which unfortunately was one of Henry's critical flaws.

Other manufacturers were just as inventive but developed more into practical production applications.


There is no better example of "trickle down economics" then "Detroit" in SO many ways. It's so unfair for me to say that "Detroit" lacked foresight vision. That just isn't true.

I once heard someone say, it might have been Shelby, that when a race car explodes in front of you on the track and all you can see is a cloud of smoke, you aim for the middle of the cloud and drive through it with your fingers crossed. You just don't know what is in the cloud or on the other side.

That's a pretty good metaphor I think for the entire situation.


Yes. I heard of the mag Can Am blocks. Never saw one or even an all aluminum Indy engine in person.

I will say though that I think GM's policy of selling you ANYTHING that they made was a better one rather then you had to be "somebody" to get into Ford's racing stash?



There are only two people that I know of that had the ability as "outsiders" to not just be the "fly on the wall" to these developments, but have the ability to "infiltrate" without security clearances into the manufacturers racing parts world. Jeff Burgy in Detroit, and Randy in SoCal.

Here in the Northeast we were just looked at as "red meat bait for the 'Draft' and as such 'draft dodgers, although in so many fields New York just seemed to be an intellectual wasteland (and still does in so many ways). Males were just looked at as rags to stuff in the hole to stop the bleeding while women were free to go demonstrate and burn their bras without fear of retribution.


That's all part of it. That isn't irrelevant at all.

It was Iocooca's concept that Ford needed to beat Ferarri to get "us" as customers and it's quite clear now that he played the "Deuce's ego" against Ferrari to get there. Even so, he just worked there and there was only so much he could do too.

He WAS right but lost that argument in '70 when Ford's study showed that for all the efforts and money spent, Ford's market share had not increased, and heck, how many times do you need to beat Ferrari at Lemans anyway. Program ended for the moment...to be continued at some later point?

[csxsfm]

Ford beancounters had more influence then and today.  Why I used to get mad when I was buying a hipo 289 at the same price the chevy guys were picking up L88's.  Ford crate engines v. GM.  Ford GT v. C8.

[TA Coupe]

John,  one of the coolest parts I ever had was a magnesium cross ram Weber intake for 58 carbs. I was in the Sacramento area driving around and saw a shop that looked interesting and I stopped in and on the wall behind the counter were to intake manifolds one Of them was the magnesium intake and the other was a 2x4 intake and I asked the guy if he wanted to sell them and he said he would sell one of them and I could buy whichever 1 I wanted so I took the magnesium 1 which I traded to  JIM INGLESE at the SAAC convention in Monterey years ago for a Brand new set of Italian Weber carbs set up for my GT40 Mirage engine.

      Roy

[JohnSlack]

John,  one of the coolest parts I ever had was a magnesium cross ram Weber intake for 58 carbs. I was in the Sacramento area driving around and saw a shop that looked interesting and I stopped in and on the wall behind the counter were to intake manifolds one Of them was the magnesium intake and the other was a 2x4 intake and I asked the guy if he wanted to sell them and he said he would sell one of them and I could buy whichever 1 I wanted so I took the magnesium 1 which I traded to  JIM INGLESE at the SAAC convention in Monterey years ago for a Brand new set of Italian Weber carbs set up for my GT40 Mirage engine.

      Roy

Roy,
One of the coolest parts I have ever owned is an NOS 1969 T/A standard Flange Holley 2x4 dual plane Intake for the BOSS 302. Wait a minute, I got that from you.....thank you again. I'll probably only ever have one of those, and in a year or so it won't be NOS anymore. However once again the quality of the casting is sub-par when graded on a curve.... I'm not complaining and it is still worth every undisclosed penny I paid for it and every agreement I made with my wife to acquire said intake manifold.
John

[TA Coupe]

Yeah John rub it in some more. Where's my hanky?😪 JK   And I am happy with the dominator carb that I got from you also.

     Roy

[shelbydoug]

Got a picture of that dual 4 Boss intake?

[gt350hr]

   Scott ,
       The 351 (XE 9.2 deck version) was made in iron and aluminum as you know and was "funded" by the GT 40/Can Am program. The 351C aluminum block program was done for the '69 Indy effoert headed by nearby resident Henry "Smokey" Yunick. When the program fell apart , the "inventory" was sent to H&M Charlotte for "sale" Dyno bought the stuff from them. Ford DID give him five or six iron SK 351C blocks with "square" cylinders but core shift was excessive and to the point where they were unusable. After the Factory backed Pinto effort , Don was "on his own" , with ZERO help from Ford.
   Randy

[JohnSlack]

   Scott ,
       The 351 (XE 9.2 deck version) was made in iron and aluminum as you know and was "funded" by the GT 40/Can Am program. The 351C aluminum block program was done for the '69 Indy effoert headed by nearby resident Henry "Smokey" Yunick. When the program fell apart , the "inventory" was sent to H&M Charlotte for "sale" Dyno bought the stuff from them. Ford DID give him five or six iron SK 351C blocks with "square" cylinders but core shift was excessive and to the point where they were unusable. After the Factory backed Pinto effort , Don was "on his own" , with ZERO help from Ford.
   Randy

I've known Randy for 40+ years and this has been a constant theme. Randy will turn on a lightbulb with a fairly simple comment leaving you to wonder if he turned the bulb on with purpose. (Usually that is the case.)

In this case I was bemoaning the inconsistent quality of the low production rare alloy castings. Randy once again brings up the universal principal "How did it get paid for?", "What group was funding it?", Who's authority was okaying the pattern making, the quantity, the tooling and research budget? Of course once an item makes it out of the well maybe this direction is a good direction to go, well then better more consistent castings are approved.

John

[JohnSlack]

Got a picture of that dual 4 Boss intake?

Doug,

It is the intake on the left in the picture set below, I knew I had a picture of it just took me a while to find it. You'll notice no cast part numbers, No FoMoCo, and actually when you see it from below the coolant outlets on the intake face are flawed. When I first got it I got all the intakes out of storage for a "T/A Family" picture. The one in the center is the "other" T/A 2x4 intake manifold for 1969, and the one on the left is a Bud Moore Mini-Plenum as used during the 1970 T/A season.
John