Assembled TA Rover Heads (getting ready for the flow bench)

[ex-tyke]

WOW  

Double WOW!

[BlownMGB-V8]

Quite a lot hotter than my cam. (which I felt was about as much as I could run in a daily driver) That looks pretty much like a full race grind to me.

Is it even possible to put 2.02" intake valves in those heads?

Jim

[Dan Jones]

> I've gone with a roller cam,with a good lift

Are you using the stud mount rockers or the TA shaft mount rockers?

> That looks pretty much like a full race grind to me.

Maybe not.  The duration at 0.050" isn't shown on the cam card.  Looking at the TA Performance catalog, the slightly larger seat duration 298R lobe has 237 degrees @ 0.050".  Woody Cooper runs solid flat tappet cams in the 240 degrees duration @ 0.050" range on some of his street driven 4.9L Rovers and those are generally on a tighter LSA so the overlap is larger than if it were on the 110 LSA of that TA0296R HL grind.  Also, solid rollers of a given duration start pulling a little earlier than hydraulic cams of the same duration.  That said, small valve heads like the OEM Rover or Buick 215/300 need more overlap (and a tighter LSA) for a given performance level than larger valve heads.  Due to the larger valves and higher intake flow, the TA Performance heads should need less duration and a wider LSA than OEM Rover heads on the same displacement engine.

> Is it even possible to put 2.02" intake valves in those heads?

TA Performance says up to 2.02" intake and 1.6" diameter exhaust valves will fit but Bob thought they would require larger seats for the 2.02" intake valves.  2.02" + 1.6" = 3.62" so it's conceivable a 2.02" would fit in a 94mm Rover bore but it might not work any better due to shrouding.  Should work for a larger bore block like a 300, though.

Dan Jones

[Nexxussian]

Dan, thank you.

[Blown v8]

At present I'm using the stud mounted rockers,
Do you think I should upgrade to the shaft mounted rockers ?

[DiDueColpi]

You said it yourself, "upgrade".
The studs are costing you power.

Cheers
Fred

[BlownMGB-V8]

Dan, you could be right on the duration but I was also looking at the lift. I know some cams go up over .700 but .650 is a whole lot of lift on a street cam, and is asking quite a lot of the springs if you want long term durability. IMO.

Jim

[Dan Jones]

> Do you think I should upgrade to the shaft mounted rockers ?

I'm going with the stud mounted rockers but I won't be running the spring pressure that you will be running.  Shaft mounted rockers earn their keep on bigger solid roller valve springs and higher RPM.

> I know some cams go up over .700 but .650 is a whole lot of lift on a street cam

Agreed.  The HL on the TA part number stands for "High Lift".  Given the small base circle of the Buick/Rover cams, that is a bunch of lobe lift.  Good springs seem to hold up longer these days and you can check them on the car but the valve guide life with the big lift suffers.  You really want to get the valve train geometry spot on.

Dan Jones

[Dan Jones]

Picked up the ported TA Rover heads today.  Heads were ported by Bob Stiegemeier of Stiegemeier Porting Service (http://stiegemeier.com/) in St. Charles, Missouri and were tested at a 28" pressure drop on a SuperFlow 600 flow bench.  Intake ports were flowed with a clayed radius around the intake port.  No pipe was used on the exhaust except for one test with the stock 4.6L Rover head (noted below).  Flow is in cubic feet per minute (CFM) and lift is in inches.  Intake valve diameter is 1.94" and exhaust diameter is 1.6".  Note that the heads were purchased assembled and Bob worked around the existing valve job.  For my application, only minor work was required on the intake side so most of the effort was concentrated on the exhaust.  Heads were flowed unported, ported and ported with a 30 degree back cut on the intake valves.  Columns are as follow:

 1 = out of box intake ports
 2 = ported intake, no back cut on intake valves
 3 = ported intake, 30 degree back cut on intake valves
 4 = out-of-box exhaust ports, no pipe stub
 5 = ported exhaust, no back cut on exhaust valves, no pipe stub

I'll try inserting periods to keep the forum software from screwing up the column spacing:

 Valve....1........2.........3........4........5
 Lift.....1.94....1.94....1.94...1.60...1.60
 (Inch)..CFM..CFM..CFM..CFM..CFM
 0.100 067.7 076.8 078.3 047.9 063.8
 0.200 105.4 120.4 129.4 070.2 108.5
 0.300 143.0 173.1 185.1 102.1 146.7
 0.350 164.0 198.7 206.2 114.9 -------
 0.400 185.1 224.2 225.8 126.0 177.0
 0.500 220.9 255.9 251.3 137.2 189.8
 0.600 225.8 ------- 252.8 140.4 199.4

Bob noted the flow for the ported intake with back-cut valves was for the first one he did.  He got closer to 260 CFM peak on subsequent valves.  He believes he can do better if starting with heads without a valve job.  The exhaust port was sized for a 1 5/8" OD header primary (the larger of the two available tri-y headers for the Triumph TR8).  For reference, here's what my ported 1964 Buick 300 cylinder heads flowed with 1.775" intake and 1.5" exhaust valves:

 Lift 1.775 1.5
 0.100 066 047
 0.200 129 104
 0.300 174 130
 0.350 187 139
 0.400 191 146
 0.500 196 152
 0.600 200 153

I had also previously flowed a stock Buick 300 head with 1.625" intake and 1.312" exhaust valves at 154 CFM intake and 116 CFM exhaust.  The unported Rover 4.6L head flowed:

 Lift  1.575 1.350
 0.100 060.2 057.4
 0.200 105.4 092.5
 0.300 132.4 103.7
 0.350 135.5 106.9
 0.400 135.5 106.9  (114.8 with pipe stub)

The ported TA Rover heads flow nearly double the stock Rover 4.6L heads!  I dug up some small block Ford AFR 165 head flow numbers (CNC ported but earlier version with the 11/32" diameter valves) from a magazine article (Mustang 5.0 magazine, November, 2000, "Having our Heads Examined"):

 AFR 165 1.9 1.6
 0.100 060 051
 0.200 123 108
 0.300 176 149
 0.400 210 174
 0.500 232 184
 0.600 232 188

Note the ported Rover TA heads outflow the highly regarded AFR 165 heads (best of the smaller valve size, stock port location, SBF heads).

Bob clearanced the chambers to around 42cc then milled them 0.020" to get them to 37cc.  He also installed thin wall bronze sleeves in the pushrod holes.  The intake valves had sharp edges around the keepers and damaged some of the valve stem seals during dis-assembly so he smoothed the sharp edges and installed new seals.  The intake valves (appear to be SI brand) were out of round so Bob cut them to get them round.  The exhaust (Ferrea) were round and needed no adjustment.  The intake manifold had a low spot on one of the flanges that he welded up and milled back down.  The intake and heads were then port matched on the block.  He tested the springs with and without the inner springs.  With the inners in place, they are 170 lbs on the seat and 400 lbs @ 0.550" lift.  With the inners removed, they are 120 lbs on the seat and 280 lbs @ 0.550".  Bob said he can adjust the seat pressure with offset keepers once I decided on the cam.  He'd really like to see me run a solid flat tappet cam with EDM lifters and beehive springs and spin the engine to 8000 RPM.  Given the intake port size, he thought I'd want to run a narrower lobe separation angle than the intake valve diameter (to cubic inches ratio) might suggest with a bunch of initial timing and a short advance curve.  He also suggested 11:1 compression and thought EFI would work better than a carb with the large intake ports.  Given the very strong exhaust port, he thought a single pattern cam would be the way to go.  He mentioned that while the exhaust would flow even more with a pipe stub, adding a full length header usually gets it back to what the naked exhaust port flows so he likes to flow them without a pipe stub.  Bob was really jazzed about the TA heads and lightweight Rover V8.  He noted there was room on the cylinder head to raise the roof a 1/2" and thought that raising the roof, filling the floor and use a larger intake valve, he could get well over 320 CFM out of the intake ports.

Photos to follow later this week or weekend.

Dan Jones

[BlownMGB-V8]

Excellent results Dan.

As expected, simply slapping on an out-of-thebox set of heads should give a noticeable improvement. With porting it is a huge boost.

Jim

[crashbash]

Dan, so what kind of H P does this let you predict on say a 5L engine build?  Are any of the TR8 race people going to be allowed to use these heads?  Maybe your TR8 on the road this summer?  bash!

[roverman]

Any various "shapes" of spark plugs tries ? Indexed ? Intake valve is solid ? Hollow SS Ferrea will give you  XX more rpm ?  Pida tube smoke testing ?  Thanks for all the info.

[Dan Jones]

> Dan, so what kind of H P does this let you predict on say a 5L engine build?

See below.  These are Dynomation predictions for an 11:1 compression, 5.0L Rover (3.7" bore by 3.5" stroke), Willpower single plane intake, 700 CFM carb, 1 5/8" long tube headers, 0.565"/0.535" lift hydraulic roller cam optimized for 4000 to 7000 RPM best average.  The first is for a "Standard Flow" single plane intake and the second is for a "high flow" single plane.  Given the low profile of the usual Rover single planes (Willpower, Harcourt, Huffaker), they are probably somewhere in between but I won't know until I gather some real dyno data.  As a point of reference, Woody built an 11:1 compression hydraulic roller 4.9L Rover with Jon Eales max effort ported Rover heads and Harcourt single plane and the engine made 391 HP on the dyno. Top line assumes ported TA Rover heads (1.94"/1.6").  Bottom line assumes ported Buick 300 heads (1.775"/1.5").  Note: The smaller valves and ports of the Buick 300 heads required approximately 10 degrees more overlap in the cam.





The simulation suggests perhaps as much as 50 HP over the ported Buick 300 heads which are already worth a bunch more power than the unported Buick or Rover heads.

> Are any of the TR8 race people going to be allowed to use these heads?

I dunno.

> Maybe your TR8 on the road this summer? bash!

Plan is to take two weeks off at the end of March to finish the Pantera then start on the Rover stuff.  Need to decide if I want to put together a temporary engine for the TR8 while we play on the dyno or wait until one of the engines is finished.

Decisions, decisions...
Dan Jones

[Dan Jones]

> Any various "shapes" of spark plugs tries ?

No but we did need to find a longer reach plug to get the electrode out of the spark plug hole.

> Indexed ?

No.  When I think of indexing, it's for the combustion event but now that you mention it changing the orientation to be parallel insead of perpendicualr to the flow would have a minor effect on flow

> Intake valve is solid?

Yes, the intake and exhaust valves supplied with the assembled TA Rover heads are solid.  I discussed hollow valves with Bob and he had a lost an engine when a hollow stem valve failed but that engine had a solid roller cam.  Also, the Crower retainers are chrome-moly steel.  I may substitute titanium retainers and maybe look into beehive springs depending upon the cam selection.

> Hollow SS Ferrea will give you XX more rpm ?

That's the claim.  They are quite expensive though.

> Pida tube smoke testing ?

Pitot tube?  No we didn't do any smoke testing or swirl.  I'll have McLain swirl test the heads and also test with the intake bolted to the head like I did with the Buick 300 heads.

> Thanks for all the info.

You're welcome.  BTW, did you ever follow up with Vizard on your heads?  Week before last, I sent him a couple of SBF intake manifolds to test for his upcoming book.  I may have him run my Rover data through his cos-cam program.

Dan Jones

[tr8todd]

My experience with really big cams in the Rover on street driven cars is not good.  Seen several different engine builds where the cylinders wash down with gas and the rings never properly seat.  By the time your willing to admit something is wrong, the cylinder walls are trashed and the pistons look like they have been to war.  Last one I saw was torn down after around 600 miles.  Needed a new block and pistons, not to mention a different cam.  Plan on installing a vacuum pump if you go big.  You will need it just to keep the gaskets, and dipstick from popping out from all the crankcase pressure.

[roverman]

Todd, I wonder if these problem motors were torque plate honed ?  Gapless top ring ?  I've seen inadequate oil return, on oem rover pistons. I have modded them with more/better return holes.  Thermal coated oem piston, with modded oil holes, lived at 20lbs+ boost, for a while. Eventually torched an edge hole to the top ring= zero compression.  Cheers, roverman.

[tr8todd]

I'm sure that had something to do with it.  The shop that was responsible for these engines doesn't even own a torque plate, nor do the machinists he farms the work out to.  Honestly, how do you build and sell a stroker engine for top dollar and you don't even use a torque plate?  Either way, I've soured on the Rover engine.  The LS3 I recently picked up will do much more for much less than a Rover ever will.

[roverman]

Yes, The basic 215/Rover V8 just made "senior" status at 55 years old. Where will the LS3 be in 55 years ?  Hard to deny the advantage of 50+ years of design/manufacturing evolution.  For some, that's not the only criteria.  Onward, roverman.

[Nexxussian]

[QUOTE tr8todd] My experience with really big cams in the Rover on street driven cars is not good. Seen several different engine builds where the cylinders wash down with gas and the rings never properly seat. By the time your willing to admit something is wrong, the cylinder walls are trashed and the pistons look like they have been to war. Last one I saw was torn down after around 600 miles. Needed a new block and pistons, not to mention a different cam. Plan on installing a vacuum pump if you go big. You will need it just to keep the gaskets, and dipstick from popping out from all the crankcase pressure. [/QUOTE]

Todd, how big is "really big" for the cam?

On the "ruined" blocks, they needed liners, or something more?

I'm thinking if they are in otherwise good condition they would be candidates for an upgrade to flanged or "top hat" sleeves.

What vacuum pump would you recommend?

[tr8todd]

Its more of the big duration cams than anything else.  Lots of fuel at idle speeds seems to be the culprit.  Seen cams with well over .500 lift that haven't caused a problem as long as the duration isn't ridiculous.  The builds I have seen issues with were 4.9 stroker builds where the bore was already .20 over.  At that bore, given the depth of the cylinder wall damage, there just wasn't room to bore and fit new pistons.  It was just easier and cheaper to grab another 4.0/4.6 block.  Around here those things are almost as common as small block Chevys.  I recently picked up a running driving clean as a whistle 2001 Range Rover 4.6 HSE for $1000.  Plan was to just yank the engine  but the wife liked the Rover so much, its now here daily driver.  To answer your question about the top hats, yes, they could have been installed.  Nobody around here wants to do that... at least not for a reasonable cost.  Last estimate I got to install top hats and bore was around $2K.  Thats what ultimately led me down the Chevy LS3 path.  I'm not a purist, and never have been.  I want to go as fast as possible for the least amount of money.  FWIW LS3 heads will flow 340CFM on the intake side and support up to 600 normally aspirated HP right out of the box.  They have hollow stem 2.16" intake valves and 1.60" sodium filled exhaust valves in support of a stock 4.06" bore.

[BlownMGB-V8]

Yeah, that LS is going to be your best bang for the buck when you're going for those real high power levels. 600 hp in an MGB is like what, a 4:1 power ratio? Pretty insane, that.

Jim

[Todd McCreary]

Posted by: Dan Jones   Date: February 16, 2016 06:08PM
I'll try inserting periods to keep the forum software from screwing up the column spacing:  


I don't know if this forum supports them, but "code" tags around the data set will prevent consecutive spaces from getting concatenated most places.  You might still have to play with some editing for spacing purposes as even forums which claim to be WYSIWYG usually aren't.



 Posted by: Dan Jones   Date: February 16, 2016 06:08PM
Note the ported Rover TA heads outflow the highly regarded AFR 165 heads


Very nice.  Good job to TA.


Plus 300 cfm would be amazing.

[Nexxussian]

Todd and Jim, yes, any Chevy based swap would likely be more cost effective on a horsepower per $$$ basis.

Todd, I asked about the sleeves as over here Darton makes them in two sizes, the larger being 96 mm and I have this potentially demented idea about using LS 3 pistons with blank crowns in a Rover.

Not that I am likely to find a 4.6 block scrapped for that salvageable a reason here.

[Dan Jones]

Test of formatting using code tags:

Ported TA Performance Rover Heads
 
 Valve
 Lift   1.94"  1.60"
 Inch   CFM    CFM
 0.100   78.3   63.8
 0.200  129.4  108.5
 0.300  185.1  146.7
 0.350  206.2  -----
 0.400  225.8  177.0
 0.500  251.3  189.8
 0.600  252.8  199.4

Dan Jones

[Dan Jones]

> I don't know if this forum supports them, but "code" tags around the data set will prevent consecutive spaces from getting concatenated most places.

Thanks Todd!  I tried pre-formatted, block quote, non proportional font and a few others and none seemed to have an effect on the spacing in this forum but you prompted me to give it another try and I realized I was using the wrong bracket style ([...] instead of <...>).

Dan Jones