Hot Rods Went treasure hunting last weekend ... scored complete Ardun heads and a Jiggler V8-60 motor

My buddy says that John (his friend that collects) paid a cool $25000 for a original set of Ardun heads and that was a few years ago! Hope that gives you some reference data.

 

Wow, at that price I might have to reconsider keeping them. Maybe I'll take them to the California Hot Rod Reunion in Bakersfield next month to see what sort of attention they get.

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Might hold off till the LA Roadster's Show And Swap next June. That seems to be where the really deep pocket buyers walk around.

 

Great score. So what's with the American Austin?

 

This is what it looks like. Just big enough for my father and mother-in-law to fit in.

 

Maybe this set is your old set! How many NOS Ardun sets exist?

 

What kind of horsepower would a flathead put out with the Ardun heads installed?

 

If you're ignorant about these, like I am, this might help:

T. Noah "Tiny" Smith from San Antonio, Texas, came up the Smith-Jiggler design.

The standard Ford V8-60 tended to overheat so Smith built a F-head conversion with the exhaust valves in the head and the intake valves in the stock location in the block.

Since the exhaust valve rocker arms were exposed, they tended to "jiggle," thus the name Jiggler.

In 1964, a conversion kit could be purchased for $450; a full race engine was $1050.

Since the head was air-cooled, the engine still suffered heating problems and because the intake valves were still in the block, there was no significant increase in horsepower.
From the Museum of American Speed website

 

Very nice, I imagine you have looked for such a treasure for a long time. That's like striking GOLD!

 

Larry, do you know of a Ardun equipped rod in Tulsa?? I remember a few years back seeing one at a car show at the Sam's store on 71st. Think it was a track roadster..
Bill

 

$20K? Not so on most original heads. Although I guess an NOS set with all the paperwork may bring something like that. Make a nice museum display.
A couple of years ago I tried to sell my original set that had been run on a street rod in New Jersey back in the 60's. Pristine. Proven to be runable, i/e. no unfound casting defects, but in excellent shape. No intake or exhaust manifolds but otherwise complete. Couldn't get offers over $6K in California. Why? because you need $3k worth of machine work to use them on a nice street engine. 3 times that if you want to go after an unsoft landspeed record. And in addition if you plan to run a fairly hot cam just throw away the entire stock Ardun valve train except the rocker stands and maybe shafts if they are perfectly unworn and send more money to Don.
If you are building anything besides a museum piece that makes a little noise and want an Ardun engine just go buy a set of Don's heads. If money is an issue maybe forget about the expensive nonsense you build into a car to do nothing more than attract the "Gee Whiz" crowd at the rod run. Spend it on a real engine.
And my heads? Decided not to sell them until they get runing on some personal project. I do my own machine work and have some nice valve train parts. But I may buy some rocker arms from Don.
Ed Weldon, Los Gatos, CA

 

In the old days I wouldn't doubt what you say. But in the last 20 years at Bonneville a lot has been learned about getting unblown gas flatheads to really run. Several of the innovative builders I have spent time with, Jim Stevens and Dave McCain set existing records with top exhaust flatheads and Ken Kloth set the XF production record (a very compe***ive cl***) with a barn door of a car, a 50 Merc, .that had a pretty impressive exhaust in the block flathead that Ken built himself.
From what they've learned I can see the Jiggler being able to pretty much outdo any gas flathead V8-60 where breathing and compression are everything.. Too bad there's no reasonable place in the vintage cl*** rules of land speed racing for Ford V-8 60's of any type, let alone ones with overheads. But in a cool street rod it's a different story. The smaller flathead can look pretty good in a roadster type designed to capture the look of a 1930's circle track car, 1940's midget or an early (pre-war) dry lakes racer.. The smaller combustion chamber volume that is possible with only one side valve allows higher compression (which helps both engine efficiency and power for every day driving.) Some of that can be traded for better breathing on the intake side if you want more top end horsepower. Remember on a gas flathead you can't have your cake and eat. Every bit of extra breathing from the valve in the side of the block is going to cost you compression. Keep in mind that the valve train that works that overhead valve may need some serious attention to get it to be optimum. And don't forget to route oil to it if you are going to run it on thestreet without a bunch of grief.. You may find that the Jiggler rocker arm cover castings may get in the way of a good valve train. If you need to CNC machine 8 new ones to a little different shape just shot blast them to look like castings and I guarantee not one in a thousand people who haven't read this post will be able to tell the difference. That kinda opens the door for a better modern rocker arm setup. Your biggest constraint looks like the need to get to the spark plug...............Ed Weldon