Featured Hot Rods Awesome Find: Mondello Ported Heads

Found these on Facebook....a pair of NOS Mondello ported small block Chevy heads...heads are dated October of '67..so I'm assuming they were bought and ported within 6 months of that. In their original boxes even. Mondello used to buy 2.02 heads over the Chevy counter, port them, then sell them outright. That's what these are. This is the 4th pair ive owned..if you can imagine that..the last pair was found about 5-7 years ago or so. Sadly I had to sell the others over the years for one reason or another. These are keepers!

 

Can't see a "camel hump" in the photos but with that date they must be "291's", one year only head.

 

Jumping Jehoshaphat! You done hit the jackpot ( won the lottery that is) . I love it.

 

Any ideal what they flow? I have a set of 990 BBC heads he ported that are going on my pulling truck. My head guy made molds of all the ports so they could be replicated if wanted. He was a master at his craft. Great find.

 

Denny...they are 291 heads..last year of the camel humps..

 

Show us the intake side.

 

Here you go...

 

Surprised they didn't have screw in studs and guide plates, but maybe 67 was a year or two early for that. I would love to see flow numbers.

 

Yup...Screw in studs and guideplates weren't a thing before 1970 on production heads. Don't know if aftermarket had them before? Normally a pinned stud was the hipo deal on this earlier stuff. Don't think these are pinned.

 

The"291's" on my L79 engine were bought as NOS castings, machined but unassembled in the late 80's, they came with all new GM valves, springs, etc including NOS "O" stamped rocker arms, the casting boxes were stamped "Initial Corvette Stock".

 

The 350 in the car that the fugly guy is leaning on had Mondello ported 492 angle plug heads. Those were one working set of heads! Great score

 

68 heads, they have the plug in the side for the temp gauge. One year only due to not having accessory holes on the ends.

 

You older guys will remember the orange and black Dorman Products drawers that the old auto parts stores had. There were a lot of good fasteners, fittings and odd stuff nicely sorted and labeled in them. I used Dorman studs to put screw in studs in SBC heads for years.
Look closely at your Mondello heads, Joe may have used them too. No milling, just remove the pressed in studs and tap the holes for 7/16-14 and screw them in. I checked one at work, they were Grade 8 material, 33-36 Rockwell C IIRC and black oxide.

Look closely at the studs, if you see that ridge resting on the cast iron bosses they are Dormans, although others bought them, packaged them in sets and jacked up the price. I still have some and the tapping block I made to keep the 7/16 tap straight.

 

I have a Moroso branded blister card of those!

FWIW the 'camel humps' someone mentioned earlier where still in place on the later #186 accessory hole heads too.

 

That's set number 656 done in 1968. And I'm the one that bought 2 of the pairs you found years back.

 

I've heard people use the camel hump callout for those heads over the years, but I think it is complete nonsense (nothing personal) to think they are of the same ilk.
Sure, through each progressive improvement, they left the "true" camel humps in the dust performance wise.
It may just be a nostalgic thing for those that used the early heads, it is with me, I do cringe just a little when I hear it.

 

Yeah, just sayin'....they're still camel humps, just not Hamb friendly ones. And I totally understand that and the reason for it. I'll take all the non-nostalgic ones you wanna shit-can btw. Guess I shoulda never brought it up. Eyes wide shut...(nothing personal).

 

Yeh...

"You older guys will remember the orange and black Dorman Products drawers that the old auto parts stores had. There were a lot of good fasteners, fittings and odd stuff nicely sorted and labeled in them."

Boy-howdy, do I. Really miss those things. The rac-pac n hanging-pac stuff is almost 100% garbage, rarely useful - but at least it's overpriced by ~ 10X+ to make up for all it's shortcomings.
Marcus...

 

Tony...good to see you on here...I remember...didn't want to invade anyone's privacy...lol

 

Speaking of Mondello-done heads, is anyone on here a "Mondello-work" expert?
That might be able to "yay or nay" a set of old ported Stude heads?
Marcus...

 

Still have one of those old Auto Parts stores with the orange and black Dorman drawers in the town by my farm. Seems like every time I go in there, I buy something out of one of those drawers.

 

656th set done in 1968? Holy shit. How is that even possible? The 2240 So. Sepulveda building still exists..the same building is now 2240 and 2242..

 

Next time you go there check to see if you can find a bin numbered V7 (or V something), I think that may have been a location, not a part number. Seems like I was paying less than fifty cents a piece BITD.

 

I imagine it means that it was ‘68 when he did his 656th set since the start of the business.

 

Imagine the amount of iron filings and grinder dust that was swept up off the floor in that building.

I did some port matching on a set of heads once on our concrete patio. It rained a couple days later and the filings immediately rusted and made a big reddish brown stain on the concrete. My wife was really pissed until I got out the muriatic acid and cleaned it.

 

That makes way more sense...

 

As far as I know any heads from Mondello's would be stamped like the photo posted above. I have SBC but I've seen Hemi and BBC and all were stamped identical. Now I'm talking 1960's. I don't know about after he went Oldsmobile or about stuff from his son.

 

Just curious. What's your plan for cleaning them up. White vinegar, citrus, osphro?

 

I'll bet there is still iron grindings in the nooks and crannies at 2240 Sepulveda

 

Look closely, those studs look to have a very small shoulder at the bottom which would indicate that they are aftermarket screw in studs without the machining for guide plates. We did this a lot back then.