Does anyone here or know of a site that has the Ardun head blueprints?? I saw one of the blueprints on an auction site that was signed and numbered, but dont really care about that. Im interested in seeing the actual blueprints themselves. Can anyone here help? Thanks. -Jason
If you can find the patent number you should be able to find them here. http://beta.uspto.gov/ I did a text search for Zora duntov ardun etc and found nothing.
You aren't going to find any sites that have detailed blueprints of the heads. The closest you'll get is to purchase the ones that are sold on eBay, and even those are of a variation that wasn't released. Orosco and Ferguson will have dimensioned prints for their re-popped heads, but good luck on getting them to send you a copy.
Google has a much nicer search interface for Patents. http://www.google.com/patents?rview=1 I didn't find anything that resembled the Ardun heads, but if you do a search for Dearborn and Valves in there, you will find some fascinating gems. And I also did a hunt using Ford and Engine and found some odd head configurations that way. There are also some interesting Duntov designs for intake manifolds. I had never used the patent search until last night, and boy putting random phrases in there brings up some fascinating results.
Try Zora Arkus-Duntov, as that was his name. It should turn up something on the USPTO site as he definitely was an inventor.
The gentleman in the photo above was George Kudasch and the signed drawings on Ebay support his widow. Services were held on Monday, March 24, 2008 for George Kudasch, 91, who p***ed away after being hospitalized following a stroke the previous week. In July of 1947, George immigrated to New York City and took an engineering job with Ardun Mechanical Corporation which was run by Zora Arkus-Duntov and his brother, Yura, both of whom George had known for several years prior to WWII in Berlin. George was put to work designing and drafting a set of cylinder heads that Zora had conceived to convert the venerable Ford flathead V8 into an overhead valve configuration with hemispherical combustion chambers. Three engines were fitted with the prototype heads by fall of that year. In 1948, George was ***igned to design another conversion cylinder head set for the smaller Ford V8-60 horsepower engine used in midget racecars, which were then popular across the country.
The picture of George Kudash signing one of his blue prints was taken by me A number of years ago. George and I using the original print veloms printed a limited number of full size BLUE blue prints from 1947. These prints are not the small size black and white cheap copies being sold on ebay. On a sad note Geroges wife Rita p***ed away last month. Geroge and Rita were from the greatest generation they survived a world war the bombing of Germany and refugee camps to start a new life in America. His design will live on forever as the grand daddy to the production HEMI V-8.
My old pal Clyde, ( the one that has the E.J. Potter "****** Mary" bike) is not only the guy that has them and sells them,... (Clyde actually was the one that found George, George was amazed that anybody knew about those old cylinder heads), some of the proceeds of the print sales went to George, and then Rita until her death,.... Call Clyde (734) 658-1052 or email him at clydescooltoys@aol.com. In fact Clyde had the actual original blue print, (along with two raw bronze castings of rocker towers) and that is where the Velom copy's came from. George studied with Duntov,.. when George first came to this country, Duntov gave him this as fill in job until he could find something permanent,.... he quickly got a job designing the controls for sikorsky helicopters
First I would like to correct some incorrect information form a previous post. The full size ARDUN head casting BLUE print which George is shown signing in that colored photo which by the way was taken by me is not copied form that cheap less than half size black and white copy being sold on Ebay. Also besides the full size Head casting print I also have the full size BLUE print of the entire valve train as originally designed by George Kudash in 1947 the TWO blueprints are form the actual print veloms which Geroge was involved with from his time working at the ARDUN mechanical company in New York so long ago. If anyone is interested in the two full size BLUE Blue prints there are a few sets still avalible. You can contact me at Ronnieroadster@aol.com
Huh,. that's kind of funny,... because I went with Clyde to Northwest Blueprint to have 1 full size and half size veloms and copies made,.... from the original print,...... which he sold for George on EBAY along with the original bronze rocker tower castings,..... son of a gun,.... Well !, I guess I must be wrong! So there you go,.... congratulations! you win the peeing contest
Just curious, can somebody answer this for me? Are these prints of the early version with the water outlets on the front of the heads or the later version and are there any other differences between the 2 styles?
Patent attorneys, unless they're *****s, do not typically submit dimensioned drawings to the patent office. The idea is to illustrate the concept, rather than do***ent the details for your compe***ion.
The signed prints I and my brother have are an early version with a front-mount water neck, but it is different than the production head. It has bolts on the outer edge of the water neck rather than the single bolt through the center. And to Evil: Sorry I forgot, I will do it soon.
and wood some one do a artical on GEORGE please he was a good and bright mind to all of us in the hot rod movement
I had delivered some 1st Detroit Autorama pictures to the Rodders Journal for there coverage of the 50th Detroit Autorama as per there request,... In conversation they said they were going to do an article on Duntov and the ARDUN,.... I told them they may want to talk with Clyde as there was more to the story than everybody thought. (Clyde told me the story only a week or two before this) I had already known about George from Clyde,..... Clyde worked at the GM archive and was going through and identifying the stuff given to them from the Duntov family,.... He came upon a letter with a hand drawn hot rod/sport car on it from George to Zora,..... Long story short,....Clyde looked him up and was blown away to find out that George was the actual designer of the ARDUN conversion (unknown until then),.... George was shocked that anybody knew about the heads,.... let alone how popular they were, George packaged up and sent to Clyde THE ORIGINAL buleprints and the two raw bronze rocker tower castings (which Clyde eventually sold for George on ebay along with the original two castings. I had dealt with a blueprint company in the Detroit area years before when I was having some original 1932 Ford blueprints reproduced,... First they had to make a Velom (Vellum) copy in full scale and then the print copys from there,.... Clyde kept a full and half scale copy of the Veloms, and sent a full scale set of veloms back to George,... all before the Rodders Journal article came out. In the article that Rodders Journal ran, they refer to Clyde only as "A source from General Motors archives",..... If Clyde didn't follow up on that letter,.... this entire story would be lost to time. You can read about it in the Rodders Journal.
thank u HARMS WAY ... george must have done more than just the heads and valve train what else did he create ????
George was a very talented engineer,.. the ARDUN overhead conversion was the only Automotive work he did,.. ( to the best of my knowledge) As I stated before George went to work designing the controls for Sikorsky Helicopters immediately after the ARDUN work,... And from what I understand, stayed there for his entire career. Clyde would know for sure. I believe it was Issue #25
The Jalopy Journal
