Raised port Stude heads

[RichFox]

Zenor has a Stude engine he wants to run in a Pickup at Bonneville. Last week Jack Vines left a broken Stude head at my house for him. What his idea is would be to make a raised port head much like the old Cleaveland kits. So we cut into it to see whats there. The plan at this time is to clean out the water jacket holes and make cast iron plugs to sort of fit in them and seal them with braze or JB weld. Then use heave angle iron and rectangular tubing to make a short runner following the existing angle of whats left of the port. To a flange onto which the headers will bolt. I did this once to a Pontiac head also. If you just wanted 4 exhaust ports without hitting water and maintaining the downward direction of the stock ports. Just cutting in as far as the boss for the center head bolt allowes you to greatly straighten out the center two ports and eliminate the Siamese center port.

[Tman]

Rich, Mike Zenor from the HAMB?

[maguromic]

Rich, Wouldn't it be easier if you just mill the port out and leave a step, then you can machine some slugs to fit in with the raised port?  Build an oven using firebrick and then gas weld all of it together.  Also if you are going to do all this work, any plans on lowering the floor and changing the combustion chamber and plug angels around for better flame?  This is a very cool project, looking forward to the updates!  Tony

[RichFox]

Zenor Lukasiewcz
Who is zendog on the HAMB. Ideas that include more work for me will please be filed in round file. I have enough with the Dodge Bros (if I ever get the cam gears) and the Bantam. I installed the kit port plates on a Cleavland Ford once and cut up a Pontiac head to try and get Larry Climbe to let me do a pair for his GTO. No luck. But afte I finish with this head I have to mill out the divider between #1 and 2 intake ports because Jack Vines thinks that will be better. Then he will flow it and I'm out of here until Zenor decides to do two heads for real.

[Tman]

Ironic that there are even two folks with similar names on the same forum!

[RichFox]

Actually I have been calling him Zenor because I have kinown Evert Zenor for years. His real name is Zenon. The first and only Zenon I have ever known.

[zenndog]

I thought you were calling me Zenor the other day while we were working on the heads.

[zenndog]

Here is the head we started with

[zenndog]

Of course we realized we can't run this head in Production, since it is altered . But we like it so we are going to finish our little test.

Rich finished the last port during the week



Birds eye view of the exhaust valve seat



Center ports, notice the crud in the water passage?



Casting wire still in the head



I cleaned up the edges of water passages with a dremel and a grinder using various bits. The main goal was to clean away loose material



Notice the hole in the front corner, those were small pockets that were just peeping through. One for each port. I drilled them to 9/32 and tapped for 5/16 fine thread.



Here is the center plug shaped out of cast iron, and a bolt in the hole I described above ( sorry for the blurry photo )



Plugs and screws ready to glue in



Glued, next the head needs to be re-machined



Thats all for now. Zenon

[Tman]

Cool, thanks for the updates!

[38flattie]

Rich, Zenor- Very cool project!

I'm real interested to see the flow numbers after the mods. Do you have, or will you have, 'before' numbers, for a comparison?

[RichFox]

It's a cool project that is going nowhere. It was supposed to be for a E/ProPickup. Can't raise and separate your ports in Pro. I got an email that indicates you must run OEM heads in PRO. So I guess there are no Brodex or other after market heads on any of those Chevys in class.

[SPARKY]

so much for build diaries---if you could still bolt a factory exhaust manifold on it I would fight that battle

[RichFox]

As I just wrote elsewhere. I am not surprised that we can't cut up the stock Stude head. I am disapointed. It seemed like hot roding to me. Buying a Brodex head seems like shopping.  RF

[Dr Goggles]

So I guess there are no Brodex or other after market heads on any of those Chevys in class.

  Of course not....er, hang on........ I won't say where it came from but I have a shot of an engine bay from a car in P, with nice etched "Brodix" rocker covers.........here's me thinkin' they're just for show

I see something of a herd mentality here though... It seems that a shelf item will be OK'd sooner because in the end anyone can go and get some.....whereas the wholesale modification of a cast item is out of the realm of most racers.Apologies of course to those who are busy  right now with their own projects...Tony, Buddy et al.So when it comes to a showdown it's one bloke making a weird item out of something old versus the chequebooks and the bolt on upgrades, I know who I'd back but sheer force of numbers are against the dogged innovator and behind the bucket-list-bolt-on-boyo's

so much for build diaries---if you could still bolt a factory exhaust manifold on it I would fight that battle

That's the spirit....I mean in reality Rich aren't you just de-briding it?....getting rid of some casting dags?......remilling  the gasket surface?