Horsepower advantage of Steel Heads Versus Aluminum.

I would like to ask Stude Truck which he thinks has a higher percentage of carbon. Gray Iron or 1018 mild steel? Also I would go with the crank trigger electronic ignition. Only proves there is more that one way to skin a cat.

 

Steel is defined as iron with 2% or less of carbon. More than 2% is grey iron, which oddly is even less iron. Regardless, still definitely not just 100% iron. Steel and Grey iron are still alloys of iron. What do I win?

Now what I don't know is whether engine blocks are made of steel or "grey iron". But, I'm pretty they aren't 100% iron regardless. I could be wrong on that though, I'll admit. Haven't found the proof on that yet.

 

That's the point. Steel, like that which auto bodies are made of. Started it's life as Iron. Then it went into a blast furnace and the carbon was burned out of it. It then became malleable. Bendable. Stronger. And less dirty to machine. Now you can have high nickle iron, but the alloy is still got to much carbon to be steel. Ever heard if Damascus Steel? That's what they used to make swords and shot guns out of. Blacksmith heated Iron red hot and beat it with a big hammer over and over again to beat the carbon out. To pricey for crankshafts. The Bessemer process is way cheaper. So in my book you don't win anything with the possible exception of some understanding.

 

we coat all our pistons on our Bonneville motors. Only once have we had any issues with it, so if you look at it from a standpoint of data collection, it wasn't likely the coating that failed , but timing, fuel , improper application etc etc. As said iron heads makes more power, no questions asked.
OJ has said a couple times this it's m***...I'm not sure what he means there, but m*** if you talking weight, has nothing to do with your build and racing at Bonneville.
The main plus for Al vs iron in MOST racing venues(not ours) is wieght and as well teh all important repairability. One thing not pointed out in everybodies VERY wide range of opinions bases on reading Street Rodder(not all, there are some very intelligent responses here!!!) is that the negative aspect of cast iron and its repairablity(not machinability...which is better than AL) is due to it being cast....if you make your heads from Iron it will not be CNCd from a piece of cast irom...it will be steel...and it will have much better repairability(ei weldability) than cast iron. I ***ume you will be making a two piece head with a water jacket machined between the two halves.
On the other hand you are running boost so you can easily add the heat back into the combustion chamber that is lost through your head...if your piston can handle it. Coat your pistons.
On unrelated subjects brought up. Not sure on your specific rules but a magneto can throw great spark but is totally unmanagable. if you build with a crank trigger you have umpteen options for timing control...VERY handy when running boots...or boost. In some cars it wouldn't matter as much as they have excessive HP, but in your case you might want a better curve to have good low to midrage as well as the all important max HP needed at Bonneville. You can run a bit more timing in the midrange with electronic control whereas with most mags you just set your total timing for you max HP ...SO this also brings in your transmission ratios and how much rpm drop you have in between gears. Rules in your cl*** will dictate timing control to an extent.
And no, piston coatings wont make it harder to read your plugs...but it will keep you from seeing the Al flecks coming off your piston when your REALLY close to having a larger problem due to detonation/pre-ignition issues...with the coating unless you catch it quick you can see the Al flecks/chunks in your header...but hopefully on your backup run with the needed speed...Hans

 

Good stuff Hans! Oh, and REALLY cool hat- congratulations!

Yes, the heads wil be two-piece.

Who are you using to coat your pistons?

We can run HEI, but no electronic ignition contol. Ideally, we would use a MSD box, and referance timing off of boost, but it's not allowed.

So, we can run a HEI, or Magneto.Sounds like HeI is the poular vote.

 

Thanks, it was a hell of a week...we use Polydyn Coatings in Houston. they coat everything for us from pistons to cam bearings...they are well versed in landspeed racing and have been working with us for 6 or 7 years now. Google em and give them a ring.

 

So where did the nickel come from? Nice banter but you didn't disprove anything I have said.

My points are:
1. steel is not 100% iron
2. I don't believe that blocks are made only of just 100% iron.

My guess is they are made out of steel or possibly grey iron, but they still aren't 100% just iron. So I don't think insisting they are pure iron is likely to be correct. But, yes, they are mostly iron regardless.

Feel free to post actual clear definitive proof of what a typical vintage engine block is made of. Honestly, I don't actually know, but my guess is steel or pretty close to it. As I said, it could be 100% iron and I will admit I am wrong if someone can prove it.

What I do know for 100% certainty is steel is not 100% iron
but is an alloy of iron.

 

But also, sorry for pressing a stupid point. I wasn't meaning for it to turn into a splitting hairs **** storm. Consider the issue dead and you won if you want. Sorry for my part of this distraction from the actual point of the thread. OP, send me a pm if you want and I'll delete my posts to clean up the thread.

 

Hell, it's all good! I learned a lot, and you gave me a bunch of bttt's.

 

So it seems to me that while many say that THEORETICALLY Iron heads will make more power than Aluminum, in reality the Aluminum heads will allow more Compression (= more power) or Higher boost (= more power), so it's kind of a moot point cuz aluminum is still going to win once you really optimize the parts.
At least that's what I'm getting out of this

As for all the arguing about Steel vs Iron, is it in a Motor or Engine ?

 

This thing push started? If so, why would you want to run a battery ignition with all the ***orted wires, boxes and stuff. Just run a hopped up mag. And as far as the heads, I would run aluminum heads with a copper gasket and o-rings in the head and receiver grooves in the block. It works on nitro so it should work on your deal. Since it's on gas? Watch for detonation. Damn I hate that word, Gasoline. JMO. Lippy

 

good luck o-ringing a flathead head.

and for the sake of argument/conversation, i'm with hotroddon.

 

Why not? The o-rings are handmade out of piano wire. You can machine any shape groove you need on a mill. Lippy

 

Dude- you just had to ask that, didn't you?!

We'll probably gowith aluminum,but I really wanted to see if there were any test results available. I don't want to leave any HP 'on the table".

It has to have a starter for the /BVGC cl***, but we can jump it. Like you mentioned, why have all the wiring, anternator, etc.?

Jimmy Stevens says he does't think we'll need to o-ring it, if we use the solid copper gaskets. Ron Main said the same thing. Jimmy ran 15lbs boost with just the solid gaskets.

 

Just FYI info, mainly due to time contraints I didn't even run an alternator on the '27 this past August. its a BBC with a front mounted F1R procharger, dry sump pump on left and belt driven water pump on the right so other than a rear axle moutned alternator it would have taken some time to fab brackets that we just didnt have. Your HEI style dizzy will run just fine on battery only , just charge in the meantime. We are running crank trigger and 7AL, full gauges, Aeromotive A1000(large) fuel pump . we would have the race car jumped to the push truck til we were 3rd or so in line then yank the jumper cables and put the panels back on. never had an issue. Yes, 7ALs like to run at 13 or 14 v, as do the fuel pumps, but it did absolutely perfect on a 1000hp 8000rpm motor all week and got me a red hat...

 

i've read in a couple of threads "weight doesn't matter". why? for whatever little difference in horsepower that steel/iron [hard stuff makes sparks when ground] verses aluminum couldn't make up in weight. lighter= faster! faster is the point.

 

RACERRICK-I think it was in Drag Racer magazine,2 issues ago.They concluded-no difference,weight of course being the only advantage.

 

Not at Bonneville.
On the salt, weight =traction=speed. You ADD weight until you start to go slower then take a bit back out.

 

You will be able to read the plugs for rich or lean, but you are not going to see if the engine has been detonating because the lack of the small specks which normally appear on the porcelain.

Coating everything else is safe though, just not the piston tops IMO.

 

We use up to 1500 lbs of lead, majority right over the rear axle in order to get some down force on the tires for traction. As an example to further my point ad some 'real life' data, this past August at Bonneville the last 2 miles was a bit soft so we had all the weight in, and the fact we were knocking on 300mph door in the '23 roadster. Headwinds were at 12mph and we were still 10 to 12mph short of our goal...yeah, winds ****s. Anywho, as a last ditch effort to try and get a few more mph we took out 800lbs of lead....that, in case your wondering is more than you can shave with the head dilema...we only gained less than 2mph over 5 miles and were shooting rooster tails 50ft in the air form the rear wheel spin. As a side note most everybody with a little HP was spinning tires on teh big end. I spun the '27 twice(the car not the tires) at 250mph or so...

and before you ask, wings are not an option, they take so much HP in drag it slows you more than it helps...

 

Some of these people are keyboard crewcheifs repeating what they read on the internet.

If the car is not gaining speed or spinning the tires, like Hans says, then you add weight for traction. 3 mile cars and roadsters are in this situation. I talked to somebody out there that had a Camaro that weighed 6000 lbs and still had enough power to be flat for the last mile.

I help on a lakester and we are still accelerating for the last 12 seconds it takes to go the last mile, 4 to 5, So we are in a 5 mile drag race and need to lighten the car till we can be flat on the last mile, or at least almost flat. Just another challenge of The Salt.

On the iron Vs. Steel. If the cutter makes crumbs and dust it's iron. If it makes chips it's steel. But somewhere there would be a transition, and is it the carbon amount that determines this?

 

When i spoke of 'm***', the head we now use is the Profiler 12degree head and it likely weighs as much as a cast iron head, the EPD pontiac prostock head , i think, weighs more than a cast iron head. They are huge! With all that m*** they are easy to clamp down to the deck and that gives you reliability.
For ignition i'd go with dig 7+ minimum, that'll give you indiv cyl timing etc and data records as well. A -10+ would be better with a blower because all the turbulace tends to blow the flame out, i believe Wille Gl*** uses the -10. With electronic ign use an altenator, many test have shown it'll make more HP (go to MSD or Powermaster sites). Best would be MSD mag, it has all the tuning capabilities of the electronics and power is measued in amperes, not milliamperes.
Coatings are a big deal. A machinest friend made the modest investment with a company that does the coatings for F1 engines. His championship spring car engines have different coatings for piston top, skirt, intake and exhaust runners, combustion chamber etc. He thinks the biggest single improvement for his engines is the coatings that won't let oil stick to the connecting rods, underside of the piston nor crank throws. He claims to get 1/2car length out of a corner because of the ability to accelerate. I can get you the name of the co he deals with if you are interested.

 

I got ya. I agree, those heads are huge and like you say the more to give a better clamping force the better. Also agree on the alternator, we jsut ran out of time, those things like 14v or even 16v. I had bought a new 16v race battery to run when we knew we didn't have time to install the alternator, but decided just to use the 12v and keep it charged. We didn't have 16v chargers and didn't feel like having 12v on one car and 16v on the other....if anybody needs a new 16v...
We have seen major improvements in component life with coatings. Our BBC motors are spending alot of time in the 9000+ rpms range and with .800ish lift the cam bearings even really take a beating before we started coating them.

 

You meant not gaining speed AND spinning the tires...add weight(for traction)...if you are still accellerating and not spinning then take out weight(or add more HP)
Yup, once you are up in the numbers it is a 5 mile drag race. In the '27 this year i was running on the BGMR record and knew I had more than enough HP and aero to easily break the record. With this false confidence I took it a little easier in the first couple miles...problem was that the salt went away in the last couple miles and I still needed to get up to 250 or so. I was having to accellerate so much in the slippery salt that I spun it a couple times. it was a touchy motor as well blown 439 cubes, over 1000hp and over 800tq from 3k to 7500, flattest torque curve you can immagine..Once I started hammering it from the push truck it was mucho bettero.

Random statement: from data taken , under normal OK salt we have seen that mph lost due to tire spin at full speed will pretty much be equal to the mph gain in increase in tire diameter at speed.

 

We have our driver pull off the truck as soon as he can. Cause the race car pulls a lot better than the Suburban. Probably by 30 mph he's gone.

He says he needs to be careful in the low gears. Once in hi it's to the floor for sure. Our tach readings agree with the mph on the big end so we are happy with no wheelspin. except when the salt wasn't good in '09 between 4 and 5 and the car turned around.

I do think our case, we have a lot of aero downforce. It's a wedge shapt body. 4 wheel susp. and really stiff springs. And the susp compresses approx 3 inches. And it's not bouncing

 

<LI id=jsArticleStep1 sizset="44" sizcache="10" itxtvisited="1">BOS Process

<LI id=jsArticleStep1 itxtvisited="1">Basic Oxygen Steel-Making (BOS) is the most efficient and popular modern steel-making process. Carbon rich pig-iron is heated until it is molten. Then it is put into a ladle (large container). The molten iron is pre-treated to remove impurities like silicon, sulfur and phosphorus. The iron is then moved into the BOS container and a lance is dropped inside that will blow 99 percent pure oxygen into the iron at a speed greater than Mach 1. Ignition and Alloy Making

<LI id=jsArticleStep1 itxtvisited="1">The blast of pure oxygen ignites the carbon in the steel. Carbon leaves in the form of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide. Other chemical impurities also burn off. Once the process is complete, the steel is combined with certain elements to make alloys according to customer specifications. Carbon steel has added carbon. Stainless steel has added chromium and nickel. ***anium steel has added ***anium

Read more: How is Iron Made Into Steel? | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/how-does_4910027_how-iron-made-steel.html#ixzz18IUmF8ic.............Note that after it becomes steel by removing carbon, alloys are added. If requester by the customer. If the customer wants High Speed Steel carbon will be added along with other trace metals. If the customer wants free cutting steel lead will be added. Making landing gear? Add chromium and Molybdenum. But if the customer just wants plain old 1018 cold or hot rolled mild steel it's done. Become informed before getting into a discussion about something. Use the ASK web site. Or something. It's easy these days.

 

thanks 97, hans and gas pumper. having never been at bonneville let alone try to set a speed record i can understand now there is a lot more to it than trying to push the load pedal through the floor board.

 

They allowed them to run Donovan's and heads like Mastodon (cast aluminum 392 style) then after awhile it turned into billet everything like the big boys. The richer guys all run Alan Johnson stuff he makes just for Nostalgia. Other guys are still using cast aluminum blocks / heads.

There are still guys running steel heads too.

 

Well I don't know what to tell you then. I mean you can keep reading people debating iron or steel... With what you are trying to do with this motor. The fact that it is supercharged, and I'm ***uming you are bringing multiple pulley's to vary boost, and you are going heavy duty on the build of them. I would go with aluminum just for the cost of material and machining. There may be an advantage of a hp or two with one over the other at peak over the course, but you can make more than that just by taking one tooth out of the top pulley.

 

Gas pumper, if you guys have stiff springs and are getting that much compression due to downforce your answer to the quest for more speed has nothing to do with weight or HP...You need to work on your aero...which car are you running? Got a PIC? We set up our cars with neutral balance, zero downforce and for DAMN sure no upforce...we have travel sensors front and back to record any changes in ride height as speed increases. We have soft springs compared to most out there, sprung front and back.

And sorry for digressing from the question of the post...umm...get quotes for material and machining for both and then we can give even more opinions...