anybody still use iron heads to make horsepower?

yes they are no longer made by RHS. they made them for 2 or 3 years as far as I can tell. theres a guy on ebay that has the remaining inventory,about 38 heads. its really a nice heavy head.port walls are very thick.unported from rhs the ports are small like factory heads,but we designed a port thats way better than a cobra jet head,as far as cross section vs. air flow.plus there not nearly as pricey.ebay guy wants 850.00 per pair for them.I dont think you can find an unmolested set of jet heads for less than that.So I thought it was a good deal.

ronrobart wrote:yes they are no longer made by RHS. they made them for 2 or 3 years as far as I can tell. theres a guy on ebay that has the remaining inventory,about 38 heads. its really a nice heavy head.port walls are very thick.unported from rhs the ports are small like factory heads,but we designed a port thats way better than a cobra jet head,as far as cross section vs. air flow.plus there not nearly as pricey.ebay guy wants 850.00 per pair for them.I dont think you can find an unmolested set of jet heads for less than that.So I thought it was a good deal.

I would say it is, thanks Ron.............

funny this post has come up. I just filled a stock block and dove heads, bought an enderle 3 hole injector, blue thunder intake all with the intent on running a 50% nitro mix. I am using ross pistons, brooks rods, and a 4.125 offset crank. Any pointers Mr Kane will be greatly appreciated.

Barney wrote:Good luck...1800hp might be a stretch but give it hell.

The fact is that OEM iron was supporting higher horsepwer than that more than 40 years go.

Paul

slurm wrote:funny this post has come up. I just filled a stock block and dove heads, bought an enderle 3 hole injector, blue thunder intake all with the intent on running a 50% nitro mix. I am using ross pistons, brooks rods, and a 4.125 offset crank. Any pointers Mr Kane will be greatly appreciated.

Very interesting as your combo sounds godawful familar to Van's first ever 385 Series based nitro motor.

Fuel is new to me and my partners are walking me through this. Because of your particular combo, I just spoke to Van about his similar setup (similar to yours) so as to get my story straight:

Like you, Van ran a 4.125" cast OEM stroked 460 crankshaft, aluminum rods, forged flat top pistons that were 0.200" in the hole, C9VE 2-bolt passenger car block bored to 4.44", was unfilled and bone dry, ported C8VE heads with big Pontiac 455HO valves, topped off with a 12-71 blower. He ran 60% in this engine combo. (NOTE: If you are new to nitromethane then I suggest you find your tune on MeOH and start blending small percentages of nitro and creep up with the percentage while keeping a close eye on your tune. Van has been running nitro since the 1970's so he was able to start at 60%.)

This engine was run for a show in Seattle and made just two pass attempts with the cast 4.125" crankshaft. The first attempt sheared the input shaft in the rear end (Jim Dunn's Halibrand Champion R/E out of his Funny Car, so it wasn't a POS R/E). For the second pass, the burnout was done with the Lenco in 2nd gear, which threw it's shift fork sometime between the burnout and the launch, and the car was staged in low gear and then stayed in low gear all the way down the track and went through the lights at more than 180 mph. Using current online engine calculators factoring the rear end ratio, the rear tire diameter, and the trap speed, the engine saw 10,000 rpm in low gear (this does not account for clutch slippage and rpm might have been higher). Upon engine teardown, every journal on the crankshaft was completely blacked and the bearings were all but gone. Into the trash the cast crankshaft went.

At exactly this moment in time, Velasco finally finished and delivered to Van the 429 steel truck crank (welded up rod journals and offset stroked to 4.125") which was the intended crankshaft in the first place. So that's all the cast crankshaft ever saw with nitro, run time wise.

A lot of people forget (or don't know) how much power these engines were putting out back in the day before all of today's super-strong, space-age, top of the line parts became available. Even though the old school parts seem to be stronger than they have the right to be, I have to say that I would not try what you are doing with your cast crankshaft.

But yes it has been done, technically speaking.

Paul

P.S.: Prior to this Van did run OEM cast 460 cranks successfully and for a long time on straight blown alcohol. Only one cast crankshaft ever broke in two on him but as I recall it wasn't the crankshaft's fault--the TH400's supposedly bulletproof aftermarket input shaft let go first.

Thank you very inspiring. I have the upright injector and pump mocked up on a 429 with c9 heads , old school speed pros, and coast high per rods. The cam is a old comp boat cam. Going to throw it on a engine stand, start on straight meth then sneak up on a 50% idle. Sort of a crackle fest engine. Winters are long, Ice fishing sucks some day I will learn how to post pics this abortion Lonny M

dfree383 wrote:

Barney wrote:Good luck... went pretty fast with iron heads... 1800hp might be a stretch but give it hell.

With a blower and nitromethane?

you know better...

Barney wrote:

dfree383 wrote:

Barney wrote:Good luck... went pretty fast with iron heads... 1800hp might be a stretch but give it hell.

With a blower and nitromethane?

you know better...

Know better than what? I think his goals are totaly obtainable, I'm just curious as to the durability. Go back in history a little how much power did those old iron 392 Hemi's make? What about the other fuel burner makes, Ford FE's, Pontiac's, Olds...... I'd agree by todays standards this is pretty crude, but it can be done.

Not saying it can't be done. The word boom comes to mind. I made a tick over 1000 and it's still alive today so it's not beyond reason I suppose.

Barney wrote:Not saying it can't be done. The word boom comes to mind. I made a tick over 1000 and it's still alive today so it's not beyond reason I suppose.

I agree its definetly a grenade...... but will it last 1 run or 100 runs? Whats the requirements to keep it alive?

dfree383 wrote:

Barney wrote:Not saying it can't be done. The word boom comes to mind. I made a tick over 1000 and it's still alive today so it's not beyond reason I suppose.

I agree its definetly a grenade...... but will it last 1 run or 100 runs? Whats the requirements to keep it alive?

Paul already answered that,$$$

cool40 wrote:

dfree383 wrote:

Barney wrote:Not saying it can't be done. The word boom comes to mind. I made a tick over 1000 and it's still alive today so it's not beyond reason I suppose.

I agree its definetly a grenade...... but will it last 1 run or 100 runs? Whats the requirements to keep it alive?

Paul already answered that,$$$

Like it says in my signature, It's always about the money

there was a guy that made over 800 hp with the stock looking scj heads and intake and exhaust manifolds in the f.a.s.t series.he has 71 mustang went high 9s on bias ply tires!i think he also had to use the correct carb for that combo.

Paul Kane wrote:

bb429power wrote:

Paul Kane wrote:Working on a 1800+/- hp build right now, OEM iron heads.

Naturally aspirated or??? Sounds impressive

No, not naturally aspirated.

Boss block filled solid, 4.5 stroke billet crankshaft with chrysler rod journals, aluminum rods, forged pistons, ported C8VE (D0VE) heads.....oh, and some CH3NO2.

I have some iron CJ heads that we might throw on top, too.

LOL, at my plant, we make NH3&CO2.

hbstang wrote:there was a guy that made over 800 hp with the stock looking scj heads and intake and exhaust manifolds in the f.a.s.t series.he has 71 mustang went high 9s on bias ply tires!i think he also had to use the correct carb for that combo.

thats Lane, he's on here. You don't even want to know the time and cost in that one!

I never said that the engine was a "grenade" or that it has the high probability of going "boom," nor is the probablilty of destruction greater than any other engine running nitromethane. This one is made up of iron (filled solid) o-ringed block and iron heads, a top quality billet crankshaft that is normally used in engines generating several thousand horsepower, quality brand name aluminum rods fitting of the crankshaft's typical application, etc. It may be a high maintenance engine (spark plugs, exh valves, valve springs, etc) but it will not carry the risk failure of most aluminum billet-blocked, aluminum billet-headed, ultra-high horsepower nitro burning engines. And at the "low" power level this particular engine will be running it will hardly have the probability of failure that the more exotic/higher horsepower engines do have. By comparison, they are the grenades.

Thanks very much to those with literally decades (90 years combined) of nitro engine tuning under their belt who are doing this with me...because if I were trying to run nitro by myself--yes--the engine might very well send parts into the grandstands in its first pass.