Making a little progress on the W5 engine for the Dakota
- Thread starter tvt59
- Start date
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Hell of a compression ratio!
Wooooooo!!!!!!
Wooooooo!!!!!!
I lived that hell unfortunately. It was a great head that with many things Mopar Performance got into, was poorly executed. Between that and my Stage VI heads on my first build it’s a wonder I’m not LS swapped.
Poor quality aluminum is the problem to start with. More attention to the amount of metal around the ports is second. A “Good” head is not so easily found to port out for a maximum effort porting.
I should ask Charlie to bench/flow test my as cast heads to see what they do.
I should ask Charlie to bench/flow test my as cast heads to see what they do.
The as cast W5 head I think flowed about 260 CFM at .600 lift on the intake. If I remember.
B3422w5
Well-Known Member
Great job with the OP’s heads. Cant wait to see what it runs.
That said, by and large the W5 head was a dud. It suffered from extremely poor casting quality, porosity issues, and the area under the spring pockets was criminally thin.
I know of what I speak, I ran longer with W5 stuff than anything else. Lost a very good set of them to porosity issues that ultimately turned them into sprinklers.
Good to see somebody having some luck with them. I just hope they hold up. Mine did, until they didn’t.
That said, by and large the W5 head was a dud. It suffered from extremely poor casting quality, porosity issues, and the area under the spring pockets was criminally thin.
I know of what I speak, I ran longer with W5 stuff than anything else. Lost a very good set of them to porosity issues that ultimately turned them into sprinklers.
Good to see somebody having some luck with them. I just hope they hold up. Mine did, until they didn’t.
TBH, I don't know if we're having any luck yet. They look promising for sure. We picked this particular set of heads because they are the first generation W5 heads. From what I've been told and Brett confirmed this. The first gen heads had no porosity problems the metal was good. The problem with the first gen heads was core shift. And Brett said their is some core shift in my heads, but it's not so bad that you can't use them. So we'll see how it goes. I have another complete set of virgin first gen heads if need be. If they hold up this engine should be a good braket engine. We used a lot of good parts, we didn't max out the compression or the cam. Brett said that he left some " on the table" for the sake of reliability. only time will tell. Brett says to expect losing some HP with the alcohol and the EFI. He said that in his experience a gas carb makes more max HP. I guess if you look at PS they lost some HP when they went to EFI. I'm just looking forward to getting it in the Dakota and seeing what it'll do.
You know veering out of this lane a little. Brett has invented his version of this head and incorporated the changes that have been mentioned in this thread. If he could just get someone to cast it for him at a reasonable price. Wouldn't it be nice to have a head like this that you could use your supporting parts with a build a 800 plus hp braket engine with.
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Interesting. The been there and done that W5 guys and those of us that are well aware of the W5 would welcome a well improved and update head like what the W5 should have been to start with.
I don’t think anyone is asking for a miracle head, just what the W5 should have been. Not a gamble, not a mess, good metal in all the right areas for a kick *** possibility in ahead of so desired, that falls on understanding architecture.
When you get to the 7, 8 and 9 head, the ball game changes just a little bit more than the average guy or a lightweight racer is willing to do in terms of expense and oddity of parts and availability. Anybody try to get heads studs for a W8 recently? Good luck! It’ll be build your own hits that package.
I don’t think anyone is asking for a miracle head, just what the W5 should have been. Not a gamble, not a mess, good metal in all the right areas for a kick *** possibility in ahead of so desired, that falls on understanding architecture.
When you get to the 7, 8 and 9 head, the ball game changes just a little bit more than the average guy or a lightweight racer is willing to do in terms of expense and oddity of parts and availability. Anybody try to get heads studs for a W8 recently? Good luck! It’ll be build your own hits that package.
B3422w5
Well-Known Member
This is a very informative post from back in 2006 regards W5 heads.
First poster is Ryan Johnson, second is Brett Miller.
Mr P body was an employee at Chrysler at the time
Anyone Interested In W5 Mopar Heads Please Read
First poster is Ryan Johnson, second is Brett Miller.
Mr P body was an employee at Chrysler at the time
Anyone Interested In W5 Mopar Heads Please Read
I’ve said for awhile now I can make as much or more power on gas and carbs as I can with alcohol.
BTDT with alcohol for a long time. I’d never use it again for my stuff.
BVoelzke
Well-Known Member
Big inch small block and a Dakota ...Cool !!!
On my AMX with the alcohol carb. It is quicker, faster and more consistent. But I think the ET improvement is because my combination is not optimal for the other parts on the car. As far as the consistency. I was able to get it pretty predictable on gas with the use of a weather station. But on alcohol it pretty much runs it's number morning to night. With the APD alcohol carb we have unloaded at 10am and ran a 5.858 and at eleven pm went 5.861. Going to alcohol really helped us braket racing.
My Dakota will be EFI it has two complete fuel systems on it. So if it's as consistent with gas as alcohol there'll be no reason to run alcohol. Unless engine temperature is a concern.
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B3422w5
Well-Known Member
The Indy heads do what the W5 stuff did.
Some of them do. But their 245cc cnc port stuff is as leak prone as some of the W5 stuff. And you can use most of your W2 stuff with W5 heads. I even have a W2 intake modified to work on W5 heads. And on the Indy heads that leaked. The new owners may have fixed that problem.
B3422w5
Well-Known Member
The Indy issue wasn’t with the metal, it was with the CNC programs they used
The W5 heads from day one were bad castings, as both Brett and Ryan said way back in 2006 on that thread I posted above.
I know a guy( David Dean) who posts on here once in a while who has been 120 in the 1/8 na with Indy heads. I forget what his car weighed, been a good while ago.
I hope you have good luck with them, it’s a good bit of money to tie up with those. Great heads, just bad bones
You are right about the cnc program. But there's 100's of them out there that can't be fixed. IMHO I think a W5 clone would be better and cheaper. Assuming someone will cast them at a reasonable price for Brett
B3422w5
Well-Known Member
Won’t sell that many.
As you well know, you can make almost 700 with Bloomers.
Can run shelf headers and intakes and many rockers available. Plus very few blocks around that will support more power than that, unless you really want to spend a ton of money for a Ritter, etc. 97% of the guys in this hobby would be way more than happy with a true 650-680 horsepower, even true racers. Just a very limited market
Lots of guys now too go gen 3 that didn’t before.
It's a niche market for sure just like the Bloomer heads. But lots of people run W2 stuff. If they wanted to step up from there if a reasonably priced W5 style was available. It'd be more economical than going with the Indy's. But for sure, properly prepared indy's work really well.
Bobzilla
Well-Known Member
This engine sounds excellent!
Really? To go from 700 to 800 hp is no easy task.
In fact, it’s harder to go from 700 to 800 hp by a wide margin than it is to go from 500-600 and 600-700.
It’s not even close.
There is no way on Gods green earth ANY non offset rocker head is going to touch the W5 or even the W2.
Disputing this is plain dumb.
I doubt Bloomer would say anything different.
What I don’t get is your aversion to offset rocker heads. It’s not just you, it’s thousand and thousands of guys who are severely allergic to using an offset rocker.
It’s no wonder no one will make any heads to make power because if it has an offset rocker
It’s damn short sighted.
ValiantS
Well-Known Member
I overlooked this thread assuming there were no big updates but, I see you've done well. Congrats!
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