Flathead chamber design

[Ks Fats]

"How did you come to the conclusion that the Navarro Hi-Domes don't work?" Mr.Navarro himself came to that conclusion; I think there is an interview floating around here on S/T in which he address's the topic. X2 on the bolt in exhaust dividers; there are cast iron and bronze available and neither one fits well requiring a lot of hand fitting, the single stud mount is not sufficient to hold it in place. John Bradley used to make his out of stainless steel also and welded them in. I've also seen a dry block injected FED that the owner made a jig and cut grooves in the top and bottom of the center port and hand fitted a stainless divider that was inserted from the header side and then welded.

[Kahuna]

As KS mentioned, and as I said, the Speedway dividers are not good as sold & installed as Speedway recommends. However, they can be made to work well after considerable work.,
If you look at the pic Jack posted, there is a depression for the stud (supplied) to secure the divider in place.
First, the depression needs to be drilled & tapped for a 1/4 X 20 thread. Next. each divider needs to be hand fitted to each individual center port location, which is not where Speedway recommends, but is much higher in the port area. I have a few pictures on another computer that I will try to submit, if I can.
Next, after the device is fitted, well up in the port area, and after careful measuring, a hole is drilled into & thru the water jacket to hold the SS 1/4" bolt that will secure the divider. Then after it's located & secured, look down the stud hole that Speedway wants you to use to hold the thing in place. Make sure the divider is centered by looking thru the stud hole & then verifying by looking up thru the exhaust port exit. Next, mark the top of the divider, remove the divider & create a depression similar to, but smaller than the one shown in the picture. Now, the stud supplied by SpeedyBill is tapered to fit in said depression.
Next & last, install the divider, install the 1/4 X 20 SS screw (I use a Phillips head with a flat washer) and coat the cleaned water jacket area where the screw will go and add a bit of JB Weld to the block & washer and tighten everything up.
Now you have a functional divider that only needs some sealant of sorts to make it really work well. I can't remember the name of the stuff I used, but it will withstand 2K degrees, if you can get it to stay in there.
To prove to myself that all this effort was worth the trouble, MY testing consisted of a vacuum cleaner that will "blow" and a lighted cigar.
Sorry for the long post.
To begin: With no valves installed, I just blew air (Vacuum cleaner) , down one exhaust valve seat.
Air came out of the exhaust port, the heat riser area and the other exhaust valve seat.
Next, I hooked up the vacuum (suck side now) to the exhaust port, after installation of the dividers.
Then I sealed the exhaust heat riser holes with the 1950 Copper pennies (required, of course).
I then lit up my cheap cigar, turned on the vacuum cleaner and watched as smoke was sucked down
the exhaust seats & into the cleaner.
Then I put the blow side again to each exhaust seat & low & behold, no air coming from anywhere except
the actual port (Header side). Conclusive proof to me, at least, that there is some benefit to
separating the exhaust gasses.
Again, sorry for the lengthy post
There is more to all this, but I'm not a good typist.
Jim
BTW, Car (engine ) has been running for over 5 years now and I have had to remove & replace the dividers
due to a bad block (unknown to me at the time of the engine assembly).
No leaks and only a slight bit of heat to release the JB Weld holding the dividers.
Engine sounds are different . Just sounds like any V8

[jed]

If u want to hear a flathead with the center exhaust divider Google Mukuch Racing there will be several u-tube videos pop up
with his bonneville flathead streamliner running running. To me it sounds more like a normal V/8 not like a flathead.

[Nikolas Ojala]

I suppose that 3D printing would be a convenient way of making cylinder + head kits for flowbench testing. Also calculated compression ratio could become quite accurate because the exact model exists first in computer memory.

[jed]

Any one know if PipeMax will work on flatheads??

[pdq67]

I think this is a picture of an Oakland/'Pontiac V-8. Two pictures if you want to look through the thread?

https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/thr ... v8.213812/

pdq67

[MichaelThompson]

Has everyone interested in this seen this video series of a side valve engine filmed in super slo mo?

https://youtu.be/jdW1t8r8qYc

https://youtu.be/rURHVLM9nxs

[MichaelThompson]

https://youtu.be/31mtOdHGbB4

https://youtu.be/e_jrAoJp8XE

[pdq67]

As KS mentioned, and as I said, the Speedway dividers are not good as sold & installed as Speedway recommends. However, they can be made to work well after considerable work.,
If you look at the pic Jack posted, there is a depression for the stud (supplied) to secure the divider in place.
First, the depression needs to be drilled & tapped for a 1/4 X 20 thread. Next. each divider needs to be hand fitted to each individual center port location, which is not where Speedway recommends, but is much higher in the port area. I have a few pictures on another computer that I will try to submit, if I can.
Next, after the device is fitted, well up in the port area, and after careful measuring, a hole is drilled into & thru the water jacket to hold the SS 1/4" bolt that will secure the divider. Then after it's located & secured, look down the stud hole that Speedway wants you to use to hold the thing in place. Make sure the divider is centered by looking thru the stud hole & then verifying by looking up thru the exhaust port exit. Next, mark the top of the divider, remove the divider & create a depression similar to, but smaller than the one shown in the picture. Now, the stud supplied by SpeedyBill is tapered to fit in said depression.
Next & last, install the divider, install the 1/4 X 20 SS screw (I use a Phillips head with a flat washer) and coat the cleaned water jacket area where the screw will go and add a bit of JB Weld to the block & washer and tighten everything up.
Now you have a functional divider that only needs some sealant of sorts to make it really work well. I can't remember the name of the stuff I used, but it will withstand 2K degrees, if you can get it to stay in there.
To prove to myself that all this effort was worth the trouble, MY testing consisted of a vacuum cleaner that will "blow" and a lighted cigar.
Sorry for the long post.
To begin: With no valves installed, I just blew air (Vacuum cleaner) , down one exhaust valve seat.
Air came out of the exhaust port, the heat riser area and the other exhaust valve seat.
Next, I hooked up the vacuum (suck side now) to the exhaust port, after installation of the dividers.
Then I sealed the exhaust heat riser holes with the 1950 Copper pennies (required, of course).
I then lit up my cheap cigar, turned on the vacuum cleaner and watched as smoke was sucked down
the exhaust seats & into the cleaner.
Then I put the blow side again to each exhaust seat & low & behold, no air coming from anywhere except
the actual port (Header side). Conclusive proof to me, at least, that there is some benefit to
separating the exhaust gasses.
Again, sorry for the lengthy post
There is more to all this, but I'm not a good typist.
Jim
BTW, Car (engine ) has been running for over 5 years now and I have had to remove & replace the dividers
due to a bad block (unknown to me at the time of the engine assembly).
No leaks and only a slight bit of heat to release the JB Weld holding the dividers.
Engine sounds are different . Just sounds like any V8

Just throwing this out here is all..

Would multiple coats of water-glass work if each coat was toasted in before the next coat?? Or something stupid like fireplace sealer in the caulk tube. It has water-glass and I figure dry milled fireclay(?) in it.

And the stuff should go to 2,000 degrees, imho..

pdq67

[jed]

Kahuna do u know what RPM Kenny ran his flat head at on the salt flats??
Also what RPM are the Kohler tractor engines turning??
I'm trying to get a idea of port size, throat size, valve size in relation to valve lifts.
I am thinking that side valve engines respond better to higher air velocities.

[bill jones]

-we dyno'd that engine 28 dyno pulls at 5750.

-at Bonneville the normal tachometer tattle tale readings were about 6000---had several times about 6400 rpm.

[jed]

Thanks for chiming in Bill. Do you rember any of the specifics of the dyno pulls like
HP at what RPM and torque. Was the dyno capable of generating a VE number.
How did Kenny get a valve spring in a flathead to support 6000+ rpm???

[bill jones]

-I think I'll talk to Kenny first and see what he thinks about divulging his hard earned efforts.

[bill jones]

Ok---Kenny says I can chat about it.

-on one of the last dyno tests we only tested at 5000---5250 and 5500.
-the barometric pressure there during the dyno test was like 24.3" HG absolute.
-the rpm rate of the dyno test was 100rpm per second.
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-I was mainly concerned about non corrected numbers so the peak torque was like 171.7 at 5000 and dropped off to 162.4 at 5500---so this is 163.5 HP at 5000 and 170.1 at 5500.

-the corrected torque was 236.5---hp was 225.2---VE was 105.1 at 5000---and 226.6 torque---hp 237.5 at 5500---VE was 103.3.

-this is with an old style 390 hp carburetor with the choke horn cut off/on an Edelbrock manifold that had the top sliced off and raised up about 1-1/2" then welded back together to make nice long hallways towards each end of the manifold---and a nice larger plenum that we had built a "turtle" below the carburetor.
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-the valve springs I don't know much about other than they were high class small diameter springs that came from Bud Harper.

-Kenny made a single cam lobe with a shank--so we could spin it in a milling machine---and the componets to hold a roller tappet---a valve and a valve spring---so we could spin test it.
-the first test day we could only listen to the noise to tell when something bad happened---and it was pretty scarey---sort of like have you head right next to a machine gun all day.
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-the next week I had acquired a really nice strobe light that could stop the valve motion at virtually any rpm---so now we could see the what was happening when the bad noise happened---and it was obvious that the valve spring was no where near enough to be the right pressure.
-for this 2nd test session we had several more springs---changed them around until the everything was good to 7000 engine.

-so now we had numbers that we needs for the valve springs---and they needed to be pretty small OD to fit into special machined relief that Kenny had to machine down the valley sides of the engine block.
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-I was never round and never saw the complicated procedure to get those valve springs installed---but it took 3 guys a full day to remove and re-install the springs AFTER the loaded valve lash had been figured out.

-the valve springs had enough tension that they significantly reduced the unloaded lash----so the every lifter had to be installed loaded with valve spring pressure when checking each and every one lifter for loaded lash.
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-here's a picture of the engine on the dyno---and the roughed in camshaft.

dyno, crossover exhaust etc.jpg

Kenny's roughed in roller cam lobes.jpg

[jed]

Thank you Kenny and thank you bill.
I know there is more to the flat head story. I hope there are more Chapters to come.
Can't wait for more