Well - I've spent just about all my spare time for the last two months porting, polishing and relieving our 1942 Flathead Cadillac block. It is destined for a purpose built Bonneville car -- for the FlatCAD Racing team. I think porting cast iron blocks is just about the ugliest, time consuming and ****-*** job there is in high-performance work. The bad news is that it needs to be done to make any horsepower at Bonneville . . . the even badder news is that I even learned how to do it. I'm very happy with the results - as I believe I'll have achieved a lot of flow . . . maybe we'll make some horsepower - we'll see. Today was a GREAT day . . . as I completed the block and brought it back to the machine shop. I have about 100 hours of porting work in what you'll see below - a lot more than I planned, but I'm always optimistic. As Jeff Fowler of Fowler Engines said then he looked at it "Beautiful work, just looking at it when its done makes yah want to jack off doesn't it!". (Guess I shouldn't have repeated that - but what the hell, he had a good point! ). So here you go . . . just a set of pictures of the end product . . . okay Boys and Girls, get those die grinders going . . . get after those blocks Note: This is the center exhaust port plenum -- where both center ports dump into. Kind of a strange aspect of the FlatCAD. We'll run one big *** exhausts tube out of it. So there you have it - one mans metal hotrod sculpture . . . fun to look at it once its done . . . your turn now . . .
About forty years ago I attended a school that a gentelman named Joe mondello had. I took the #101 porting and polishing. I learned more than porting and polishing from Joe. He became a mentor to me. That's the kind of work that Joe would do. Great work, you can be proud of what you've accomplished, and good luck with the project.
Man ya oughta frame that Dale, not drive/race it !! Beautiful work, a tribute to you patience/persistance. And yeah, porting cast iron ****s *** big time !! I hope ya used protection bro !! Rat
I can FIRMLY say, that no barnyard animals were involved in my porting and IF they were, that I was protected As my old HotRod Uncle used to say "Dale, spend a nickle and cover that pickle!" . . . was he talking about an air mask? All joking aside, I wear an air mask, hearing protection and gl***es the whole time. It is hard to believe that when I was young, I didn't give a **** about any of this . . . blew cast iron out of my nose for days and didn't give two ****s. Dumb*** that I was . . .
I know exactly what you're saying . . . and I'm not even in your business! With that said, I have been meaning to get back with you - need to chat about some serious chrome work I need to ponder . . .
I don't have a flow bench . . . might build one next winter. With that said, it is very obvious that the overall flow has been increased by a large margin. I will say that if you've ever been around blown motors, that the key is overall volume - the blower makes up for the deficiencies, but you need port/flow volume to make horsepower. I believe that this block, ports, valves, cam will produce some very respectable numbers for a flathead . . . as we have a LOT more port, bowl and valve area volume than I'm used to seeing in a flathead Ford. We're going to put the car on a ch***is dyno - that should give us some real numbers. Bench racing and flow benches beware . . . the salt will speak the truth!
What wall thickness were you reading on the ports after the job was finished? I'm wondering how much is left mostly because I'm going to attempt to do a similar job on one of mine (have an unusable block to practice with to start). Y'all have a good day, Keith
Sound sgreat. I'm just a PM away. From the looks of it, you've got the skills to prep your own parts for plating.
you going to roughen up the intake ports a hair so you get a smidgen of turbulence to keep you fuel in suspension? You can experience wetting if not. Exh and bowls an stay mirrorlike. Very purty...I got a flat cad in my '27 Hans
The intakes are only polished to a 120 grit -- the exhausts to 600. I could go back to the intakes with a co****r grit . . . what grit do you go down to? Dale
In using a sonic tester in the ports, one finds that in some areas it works very well, in others (sharper corners), it doesn't fit the radius/curve well enough to get solid readings. This makes one a bit nervous doing the amount of work I did (heavy porting). I'm going to look into additional probes with shapes that will better handle this situation. With the above said, the thinnest area (I can test) is about .110 (couple spots) -- which is getting down there. In most areas the thinnest is about .150 . . . which is more where I'd like it. As the FlatCAD has four different port designs (for both the intake and the exhaust), it makes the amount of sonic testing and validation all the harder. There is one intake port design where you need to be more careful than the others . . . same with the exhaust, so being able to use the sonic tester really helps in identifying the suspect ones. As this is the first time I've ported a FlatCAD, I was a bit nervous in certain areas . . . but thankfully I was able to complete the work and did not see any issues in any ports. Maybe I was lucky, maybe I was good . . . probably a bit of both What the sonic tester won't tell you about is porosity . . . pin holes, sand in the iron, etc.. Obviously (at least to me), the more aggressive the porting, the thinner the walls and the increased chance of a porosity issue. We'll probably use a ceramic block sealer just for insurance - like a lot of the Nascar boys do.
Could be, but what looks right doesn't always return the results expected. While there are some basic rulas and relationships, skilled and experienced cylinder head porters have been surprised enough times that they are careful about ***uming too much. One thing in your favor, most old stuff was so bad the odds are no matter what you do it's probably an improvement.
No - flat deck, with some deep valve 'pockets' on the leading edges (toward the cylinder). This is one reason I relieved the block - as with a 7 degree valve angle, they are really down 'in a hole' . . . which isn't good for flow in my mind. Stock:
I hear yah! On this old beast, the ports were so choked, that there wasn't much room for flow. Also, on a blown Bonneville motor - overall port volume is the most important. This is especially true in a Flathead Cadillac, there there is little you can do about the big bend/radius in the port runners -- if you try to take much of that out, you'll hit water in a hurry. Next winter I plan to build a flow-bench . . . will be interesting to experiment on a junk block and see what the bench tells me. I need to do some research on how to use a flow-bench to mimic boost. Does one just put pressure on the intake side ??? . . . seems to make sense to me, but I don't know if there is an "accepted practice" or not.
It is hard to believe that when I was young, I didn't give a **** about any of this . . . blew cast iron out of my nose for days and didn't give two ****s. Dumb*** that I was . . .[/QUOTE] BTDT, but the booger pickin's were killer!
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