Horsepower advantage of Steel Heads Versus Aluminum.

While the aluminum heads would be lighter I can't believe that anybody who is running a Cad Flathead in a cl*** that requires a almost stock location engine, is very worried about weight or it's distribution. Buddy's car is going to be heavy on front and nothing he can do about it beside adding lead to the rear. Now had he built a RMR or a lakester he would have had some bite.

 

Very true Rich!...at least we know he wont be light in the front!

 

Hans, thank for some great info! Due to room, and limited mounting area for an alternator, I'll probably try an HEI vs the mag on the dyno.

OJ, I'm definately going to look into the MSd mag- that really intrigues me!

Rich, your right. The engine alone will be 1000-1100lbs. Because setback is measured from the first plug, we are at the 2% setback just putting the Flatcad in the stock location!

I'm buying all the reclaimed shot I can find- damned environmentalists- the stuff brings a premium now!

 

I don't want to interrupt this, but WOW. Metallurgy, thermal dynamics, and how the internal combustion engine will always add exceptions to the rules....thanks for some good education.

 

You can always run you ralternator off the rear axle, just set it up to at least be spinning high enough to charge efficiently halfway down the track when you need it most...

cheap/free lead can be had from 'sponsers' in the form of tire shops and stained gl*** companies...you will end up melting it into ingots that fit you car anyhow...make the lead chuncks small enough so you can get them in and out of the car...they must be bolted in very secrurely to p*** tech...

 

Ok the short answer is yes, iron head will make more power, but not in any amount that can actually feel or even find on a dragstrip. It's that small of an amount!! If you want to keep heat in the cylinder, and we all do caue it makes the power, then it's coatings, coatings, coatings, all the way!!! Piston tops, valves, and chambers. They will make a difference you can feel and see on the track.

 

Hmmm. I know all the controversy a RMR discussion causes, and what a new cl*** disussion causes.

Maybe we need a new RMC (rear engine modified coupe) Cl***!

Thanks for the info Hans. There will be compartments in the frame, we can fill with shot for weight. I'm sure, though, that we'll also need some ingots in the back end.

Coating seems to be the consensus answer here, rather than steel or aluminum. We'll go with aluminum, and coat the necessary parts.

 

Forget rear engine coups! It has been better than 30 years since I worked in Plasma spray. (Its been better that 12 since I had a job at all) And I am sure they have made some changes since I was there. But please try to make sure you are getting a "Plasma Spray" Not an Oxy, Acetylene, Compressed air deal. Something with Hydrogen, Argon and plenty of volts. But again it has been a long time and I'm not to sure what I remember of the process.

 

Yeah, I feel a little guilty for derailing the flatties thread, but it is interesting.

It's the 608 AA/GL, we wanted to be the first to 300 on carbs and gas with a lakester, and a dump truck motor. Sparky did the 300, with FI. and now Hammond has it up to about 316?? also FI. We had the AA/FL record for about a month in 2009.

We did not go this year cause the car is getting streched a little longer and a new body made to correct the aero. The guy doing the body has not been moving along. It's gonna look a lot like the Poteet car.

A couple of pictures in the albums in my profile.

So if we get out there in '11, it will be a little lighter, better air, and we can always put weight back in if we have traction issues.

Oh, we'd been out the back at 298+ a few times already and just can't hit the big number. Just for our own braging rights, it's frustrating to come that close and not be able to squeeze it for that last bit. That's B'ville thou, a lot of guys are the fastest off the trailer and go backwards during the week, it seems.

We were in Warnerville (impound) three times in 2009, I think, and came away with one record. It's not easy to repeat out there.

Frank

 

X2.1

Stude_Trucks, you seem to be hung up on the purity of iron and steel.
I'm not sure if you are being willfully defiant or if somehow you are missing the rationale of the iron/steel making process and their respective applications. You seem to be 'nit-picking' to the Nth degree, and causing confusion in yourself and bewilerment to others.

Yes some CI is poured in it's native form, it's uses are usually determined by low cost product, low strength requirements and to hell with any machining requirements. However industry often requires CI to have other characteristics such as higher strength, toughness, hardness and machinability. This is when alloys are used to gain the desired characteristics. Adding alloys to native CI doesn't turn it into steel, it merely turns it into an alloy of CI. Engine blocks for example are made from alloyed CI, the native CI being too co**** and brittle for such an highly stressed component.

Cast iron, due to it's higher carbon content can not be wrought or forged.

Whereas steel, with it's lower carbon content can be wrought, forged, and cast. Steel once modified during the BOS process shares two things in common with it's parent i.e. iron and carbon. Both iron and carbon content are heavily modified to produce steel, this modification process extinguishes all notions that the new product is still somehow a modified CI, it is not, it has become a different material (steel) with a distant ancestor (iron ore.) That steel can be cast does not in turn equate to it somehow transmorgifying back into CI, it cannot, it remains cast steel.

I hope my simple explanation is of use to you.

 

I ended up going with Rich's and Hans advice, and coating the chambers on aluminum, two piece heads. I also had the piston tops, skirts, and underneath coated, along with the valves, just in case we decide to add a little nitro down the road. We are also running coated cam, rod, and main bearings.