Ported Edelbrock Victor flow numbers

[pittsburghracer]

A good friend of mine wanted to put a set of big block Victor heads on my flow bench that he ported so we checked them out today. As always when I switch adaptors on my bench I take five minutes to check calibration. With a 300cfm calibration plate on it read 300-301cfm so that checked out good as usual. Now a little about his car. It’s a beautiful unmolested 1972 duster that weights a hair over 3500 pounds. It’s a low deck 4.500 bore stroker with a 727 transmission (transbrake) Dana rear, pretty sure it’s been 1.28 sixty foots, .690 lift roller cam, Indy intake he ported, and it’s gone 9.58 at Keystone Raceway Park. Like I said this car is beautiful and hopefully he sends me a picture or to to post up. I told him he had free bench time and we would have an enjoyable day so we spent 4 plus hours together checking flow with his intake on and check intake and exhaust airspeed.

 

[pittsburghracer]

The intake side was FANTASTIC with nice flow numbers and we hit 401FPS (max on my bench) at high lift at the short turn and it handled it well. Zero noise, flowed up to .850 with zero dips or total stalls. The exhaust although not terrible needed a little work. He was afraid of hitting water so he has a junk head he is going to check thickness on. I recommended around three things to do on the exhaust and a couple of things on the manifold. He is now going to call a cam manufacturer and give them flow numbers and is aiming for .750 true lift so probably a 780 lift cam. He’s hoping for consistent 9.40’s.

 

[Bobzilla]

Very cool. Thanks for posting this.

Intake did not hold the heads back too much, it seams. Was the intake heavily worked as well? I assume so.

Will he allow pictures of the ports and bowls to be posted?

 

[pittsburghracer]

Very cool. Thanks for posting this.

Intake did not hold the heads back too much, it seams. Was the intake heavily worked as well? I assume so.

Will he allow pictures of the ports and bowls to be posted?

Very unusual but I didn’t take any pictures. I’m sure he wouldn’t have minded but being it wasn’t my work I wouldn’t feel right posting pictures of his work. Both the head and intake work looked very nice. He wanted any suggestions so I offered up a few, very few needed. Joe is like me in a lot of ways as far as he wants and does do his own work. He just barely remembered but 14 years or so ago he was over to my shop picking up something while I was building an engine. I love company but usually stop working when I have company as I love to BS but feel mistakes happen if your mind wonders. I was set up for ring grinding and he said do you want me to file your rings and you can continue assembling the rods and pistons. I let him and he’s the only friend that I would let do it. He’s a fanatic about cleanliness and correct assembly. This was a stock block 440 that ran 8.60’s@155mph.

 

[Bobzilla]

Totally understandable.

You said his engine is running 4.5” bore. Did you use a 4.5” adapter while flowing these heads?
I am just curious about the details. I don’t have Victor heads and won’t be getting any.

 

[pittsburghracer]

Totally understandable.

You said his engine is running 4.5” bore. Did you use a 4.5” adapter while flowing these heads?
I am just curious about the details. I don’t have Victor heads and won’t be getting any.

i have a 4.450 adapter so it’s close. Only thing I wish he would have done was freshen up the valve job which he does himself before we flow tested them. I’m betting the low to mid lift numbers would have been a touch better.

 

[PRH]

Those are really good numbers on the intake side.
I’ve never had any of those here even get close to that.

If your bench and mine are even “close” on the exhaust...... then those are pretty soft on that side of the head.
250-260-ish(without a tube) is what I often see out of them.

 

[pittsburghracer]

Those are really good numbers on the intake side.
I’ve never had any of those here even get close to that.

If your bench and mine are even “close” on the exhaust...... then those are pretty soft on that side of the head.
250-260-ish(without a tube) is what I often see out of them.

He brought both heads with him so when I saw the numbers were low and very slow exit airspeed I went out and looked at the other exhaust ports to see what was going on. The short side needed pushed back, widened, and lowered some. The valve guide area behind it had zero airspeed for a rather large area. He was going to check the thickness of that area on his scrap head and hopefully remove some more metal. I told him the short side work and the bigger cam should easily get him into the 9.40’s. The intake side was very impressive especially with a 2.200 valve. Throat sizing was about right at the max in my eyes at 91%.

 

[PRH]

I don’t know which generation heads your friend has, but the 2nd gen came with very small bowls, on both intake and exhaust....... which then requires a stupid amount of material to be taken out to get them anywhere into a more “normal” size.

The first gen were kinda the opposite, with huge bowls that were borderline “too big” as cast.

I took some measurements from a set of of MW Victors that were cnc’d by Hughes.
The intake throat was 1.990, and the intake bowl max diameter was a fair amount bigger than the valve at 2.235.
(The Ede 2.20 valves were apparently tweaked and Hughes replaced them with some SI brand 2.19’s)
The exhaust was 1.590 throat, 1.650 bowl.

I don’t recall which gen those heads were.

 

[pittsburghracer]

I don’t know which generation heads your friend has, but the 2nd gen came with very small bowls, on both intake and exhaust....... which then requires a stupid amount of material to be taken out to get them anywhere into a more “normal” size.

The first gen were kinda the opposite, with huge bowls that were borderline “too big” as cast.

I took some measurements from a set of of MW Victors that were cnc’d by Hughes.
The intake throat was 1.990, and the intake bowl max diameter was a fair amount bigger than the valve at 2.235.
(The Ede 2.20 valves were apparently tweaked and Hughes replaced them with some SI brand 2.19’s)
The exhaust was 1.590 throat, 1.650 bowl.

I don’t recall which gen those heads were.

He said he’s had these heads for years and there’s a small divot under the intake valves making the bowl bigger than the seat so they sold like first generation heads. I just called him and offered to leave my big block adapter on till Sunday and said if he wanted to port the same exhaust that we tested and we could retest it this weekend. He liked that idea so I may be able to update the exhaust flow info. I gotta get set up for small block testing again but have stuff I can work on before I’m ready to flow test again.

 

[PRH]

Thinking about it a little more.......
I’m not sure that the MW sized 2nd gen Victors has the smaller bowls(the std port version are def that way).

I’ve only had two sets of untouched MW Victors here....... and neither of those had the small bowls.
The first set were def 1st gen, but I don’t remember what the 2nd set was.

It’ll be interesting to see how your buddy does on that ex port.

If you get a pic of the top of the head and the chamber, you can determine if they’re gen 1 or 2.

 

[Bobzilla]

Thinking about it a little more.......
I’m not sure that the MW sized 2nd gen Victors has the smaller bowls(the std port version are def that way).

I’ve only had two sets of untouched MW Victors here....... and neither of those had the small bowls.
The first set were def 1st gen, but I don’t remember what the 2nd set was.

It’ll be interesting to see how your buddy does on that ex port.

If you get a pic of the top of the head and the chamber, you can determine if they’re gen 1 or 2.

You mentioned the two versions of this Victor head previously in another thread. I think it came up in discussion about the big block Speedmaster head that is currently available, which if I recall correctly, you said looks like a gen 1 Victor copy.
Do you know why they changed the Edelbrock to have second generation version? Some kind of improvement, I assume, but searches are not coming up with the changes.

 

[PRH]

It’s not really anything that was “announced” by Edelbrock.
It’s just that at some point, obvious changes were made to the castings.
My feeling was that, at least with regards to the std port version, they filled in the bowls and areas of the chamber to give the CNC porting shops more material to work with to allow for more variations to the contours.
When they’re already technically “too big”, there isn’t much to work with.
They also added material to the top of exterior of the intake ports to facilitate a better mounting area for paired type rocker systems(like a Jesel).

As for the greatly reduced bowls...... def NOT an improvement imo, but I like the extra material on the top of the head.

The gen 1 std port head flowed in the 330’s right ootb.
That’s a damn good number for an unported std port head.

The gen 2 heads are low 320’s(at most) and are very constricted in the bowls.
Imo, they went from what I thought was a pretty nice std port head....... to something that is frankly pretty miserable to work with....... if you’re hand porting them.
The intake bowls need to be opened up by .250” to .300”(which will put it at about the same size as an ootb RPM head).
It’s absurd to have to take that much out.

Ootb std port gen 2 Victor:
4.375 bore, 28”
Lift—— I/E
.100— 64/50
.200—126/104
.300—183/143
.400—239/167
.500—281/175
.600—311/176
.700—308/176

The SM head is patterned(a nice way of saying a “copy”) after the 1st gen head.

BTW...... just keeping the thread “warm” until PBR posts some updates.

 

[pittsburghracer]

I know on my bench I had to really lean on a B1 head with a bigger valve to hit 420cfm. Was there more left, yes. But at that point I took molds so I could get the engine together. I have another set that I bought that were hand butchered badly but were new with titanium intake and exhaust valves. B1’s came with pathetically small ports so hopefully there is metal in the right places to correct them and lean on them a little harder. The 420cfm set is on my 572 but I’m betting I will be a little disappointed till I hit it with nitrous. Totally different building an adder engine.

 

[PRH]

I’ve found the original B1’s to be surprisingly fussy in terms of the intake SSR shape.
And...... I haven’t really figured out the ex port all that well on them either.

 

[33IMP]

PRH and Pittsburg, thank you both for this thread, and the info! I have a pair of new in box 2nd gen max wedge victors i'm trying to decide what to do with. I would have gladly bought 270 trickflows, but there was no such thing (or 240s for that matter) when i bought my victors.

 

[PRH]

Since you have 2 gen MW Victors......
How about a couple of up close pics of the bowls?
Maybe even check the bowl and throat diameters?

 

[33IMP]

Gladly would, but im two hundred miles away! Ill see if i can find some pics in my phone or tablet. I doubt what pics i have would be helpful.

 

[PRH]

No biggie...... It was just a thought.

 

[pittsburghracer]

Just talked today and as I suggested he did a valve job to the exhaust port we tested, widened and shaped the short side and did a little more bowl work. He’s coming over tomorrow at 10am and we will retest it. Should hopefully have better ex numbers to report tomorrow.

 

[PRH]

It’ll be interesting.

Do you have a big block flow tube?

My notes show a 2” tube to be worth around 20 or so, after porting, at .700 with those heads.

 

[pittsburghracer]

It’ll be interesting.

Do you have a big block flow tube?

My notes show a 2” tube to be worth around 20 or so at .700 with those heads.

Putting a piece of 2 inch pvc pipe gained us an immediate 11 cfm but I don’t use it to record my final flow numbers. It’s a tool like many others.

 

[33IMP]

Best shots ive got, sorry couldnt be more helpful.

 

[PRH]

Well, based on the chamber shape, those are def gen 2’s.
Can’t really tell anything about the bowls though.

The chambers are similar, with the biggest difference being the area on the quench side.

Top pic, 1st gen chamber
Bottom pic, 2nd gen chamber

 

[pittsburghracer]

Ok today’s update. Here’s a quick picture of a picture of Joe’s beautiful 1972 Duster. Car weights 3550 at the line has a stroker low deck Maddog block and .690 roller cam all steel car. I thought it had a fiberglass hood but it doesn’t. Best ET to date is 9.58.