Speedmaster aluminum heads

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Since this is the racer's Forum,
I didn't want to say more;
but somebody not you fishmens, poked the bear, making it personal; so
Firstly;
I Ran it like that (post 19) for an entire summer, and, with a regularly scheduled teardown every winter for inspection; there was no sign of detonation. It was the strongest bottom end I ever had and my favorite combo.
On the next combo, a one-size bigger cam, the pressure came down a tad. I really missed that. So much so that I swapped the 2.66 low out for a 3.09. This allowed me to retard the cam, and I picked up a good amount of top end. Car went 93 in the Eighth @930ft and 3467 pounds, me in it. with 3.55s no less.
But you know;
according to some
it can't be done.
Like said; I'm a streeter with a clutch; bottom-end is everything.
With the GVod used as a splitter, my new combination of gearing, gets me; Four ratios in the Eighth, namely;
3.09-2.41-1.92-1.50 ; which in Roadgears with 3.55s is
10.97-8.86-6.82-5.32 ;
and 93mph is 6170 ;
and it takes off like it had 4.10s
First-over gets me 50@5100/60@6400, Second is 60@5100/75@6400; Power Peak is ~5100
This combination was a culmination of five years of experimentation which ended in 2004/05. After that, it was settled and I just drove the crap out of it. Both the car and I are semi-retired now. Every once in a while I take it out for a spin,
just cuz..........
Secondly:

It wasn't about me until some of you guys made it so. I was just trying to help.
But you guys are the guru's, and love to put me down.
I'll tell you a couple of things tho;
1) I'll never go back to low-pressure, and
2) I'll never go back to iron heads, and
3) I'll never go back to low-temp stats
4) regularly-scheduled inspection teardowns
are cheap compared to dynomited engines.
5) a lil too much ring gap is, by far, better than tearing off lands. For a Street-car, now; If when you shut your engine off, ten minutes later, it won't crank cuz the pistons ain't moving; do yourself a favor, don't bandaid her up with cooling system mods; just do what needs to be done. She needs to come apart, and get fixed. Loosen up the skirts and open up the gaps.
6) If there ever is a next cam, it will be a solid lifter.
and Thirdly

If this is true, then I am happy to be wrong.
I could be wrong about a lot of things; like, the shape of the Earth, the Second Coming, The THIRD Resurrection, the Four Corners of the Earth, and the Seventh-Day Sabbath...........
Fourthly;
Can you run a streeter at 195psi with iron heads?
Last I checked, not NA on 87E10.
With alloys, I've been right around 180 now, for going on 9 years. yes still and always on 87E10. And BTW, until October 2022, it was still on the original Champion copper plugs installed in 1999. In 2004 when I ran that Eighth, the plugs were already over four years old, and likely had close to 40,000 miles on 'em.

Once again,
jus saying.


Let me help you out some AJ. It’s not 1982 any more.

1. Cranking pressure doesn’t mean much UNLESS you are tracking the same engine with the same starter and the same battery. I start engines on the dyno with 24 volts. What do you think that will do to cranking pressure. I’ve had engines with 165 rattle it’s brains out and engines with 200 plus run on pump gas.

2. Who cares if YOU don’t want to run iron heads. As I’ve said many times on this forum the materiel the head is made of doesn’t make a pinch of **** difference in what compression ratio you run (or more accurately what the EFFECTIVE compression ratio is). Not one bit. You can perpetuate the myth but you would be wrong.

3. If you want to run 190 plus coolant temps that’s on you. But, you can run more compression and make more power with lower coolant temps than you can with higher coolant temps. It requires a different tune up, but lower coolant temps make more power. Someday you need to drag your *** out of the Stone Age and catch up. Hotter coolant temps make the engine far more detonation prone. And they make less power.

4. So how often are you pulling the engine out, stripping it down and measuring all the clearances? You make it sound like it’s yearly or biannually at least. I seriously doubt that’s what you do. And I notice you change your plugs out every decade or so, so the upshot is you ain’t looking at your stuff that often, if at all.

5. A machinist you are not. Opening up the ring gaps (outside of manufacturers recommendations) is a waste of power and it makes the engine dirty. It’s not 1982 any more. And why use more than the required skirt clearance? All you do is kill ring seal. You love to repeat old wives tales and myths but I doubt you have done the testing to prove otherwise.

6. Who cares what cam you may run next.

And…no one who has spent an hour looking into pump gas and what it is (and more importantly what it isn’t) would never, EVER build a pump gas engine like we are discussing to run on 87 octane garbage. I know guys like you (and some authors) love to show what you can get away with using 87 octane junk, but it’s a fools errand. The fillers and junk that’s in that stuff is unburnable and it makes the engine dirty.

Of course, you should know this because you inspect your stuff on a regular basis.

To come here and brag what you do with 87 octane garbage would be comical if it wasn’t such a dumb thing to do. You might think it’s cool and all that but it’s dumb.

Like I said, your 195 cranking compression doesn’t mean a thing. You brag it up but it only means something for what YOU have. And no one has seen your plugs or your tune up or anything else.

You can bet your *** I run far higher compression ratios on iron headed pump gas engines than you do, and have been doing it for decades.

And to close this out, because YOU brought it up…

The earth is ROUND. The “four corners” you refer to is the 2D representation found on maps. If you think maps of the world were not around at the time of the writing of the Bible you need to spend 5 years or so looking at Bible history, and actual history. This is way too basic. You shouldn’t be hung up on dumb crap like that. Simple ballistic calculations prove the earth is round.

There are two and only TWO resurrections.

There is a Second AND a Third coming, which if you get the resurrections correct you’d see how that fits together.

The Seventh day IS the Sabbath. You got that one correct.

Back to the topic at hand. You can run the same compression ratio (effective) on iron heads as you can on aluminum heads. Well, maybe you can’t but the rest of us can.

Drop your coolant temps, correct your tune up and make more power. And the engine will run cleaner. And last longer.

Stop being a cheap screw and ditch the 87 octane garbage. Do some research on why it is low grade fuel. No one in their right mind would run that junk in a performance pump gas engine.

Just sayin’
 
There's not much cost savings in SM heads if you go through them at all.

Here's my post from 2020 detailing the total cost for me to get the heads where I wanted them, and it is wasn't a lot of work either. VJ and some bolt on parts had me up to almost $2000.

But the trick flows and call it a day

Trick Flow SBM Heads
 
The SM heads are cheap as a OOTB cylinder head. If you have someone do any work to them, the cost savings disappears rapidly as with any other head. With that in mind, which seems to be forgotten here often with all the people saying “Save money, go with a SM head”, IMO, you better off going with what I always say, (“Afford yourself and-) Get the best head possible.

So many people have come back, argued and balked at that idea I write often about and suggest it’s silly. I guess, if YOU are going to DO THE UPGRADED WORK YOURSELF, it’s a deal. I don’t have a machine to kill the head down, do a valve job & as many others, I lack porting skills that really make the head into something nice.

A few years back, I purchased a set of CNC’d heads from ProMaxx which are the chink castings reworked here in the USA in Alabama. This is before the Trick Flow heads came out. IMO, probably the best “Replacement style” cylinder head at the time.
I also, before the TF heads came out, went with a set of W5 heads.

If I didn’t have cylinder heads today, I’d run Victors for a max power output engine, Trick Flows for a powerful street engine.
I wouldn’t waste time with anything else.

In the long run, it’s better to spend on the better cylinder head up front rather than a lesser head only to spend more on it later to upgrade it and probably, most probably, fall short of the better head for what would most likely be less money over all.

As someone has in their sig… pick your parts, pay your money.
(MPoffical)
Then live with the limitations and the cost of upgrading.
 
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