The Cal-look Lounge

What's the story with the Chinese heads that some head porters are using, any feedback?? Are they good??

with the top head porters using them any being a couple fast SS/VX cars, I would say yes they are good.

What choice do we have?

Well, I talked to a couple of top guy's that I know today, and says that they are pretty good heads and machine very well. Never doughted the head porters, just wondering, being Chinese heads.

Ted

I think Bugpacks are Japanese , and they work fine ... best we ever had

Udo

These type of threads are hillarious...For you older guys...remember where NPRs and ISS piston and liners were made? Now guys buy used ones at swap meets like they are something special because they are era parts.  These were made in JAPAN along with many other things back in the day.  

If the metalurgy is right and the castings are good, why is anyone so concerned about the parts?  I bought a BUGPACK forged crank, flywheel and rods when BUGPACK started bringing them to the US in the early to mid 90's.  I drove the crap out of my 2110 and it worked fine. I watched Mitch Evensen lighten the CHINESE forged cranks and spin them to 10,300 rpms (saw it with my own eyes on his tattle-tale tachometer).

I would not worry for a second about using the CHINESE heads. They are a much better casting than most of the south of the border crap I have seen over the last couple decades.  I have to debur and remove all the flashing from MEXICAN or South American heads to get air to flow through them.  IF you want the top of the line heads that are out...check out the REVMASTER heads. I bought a pair of them for my next 90.5 x 84 motor project.

Rick M

I'll use a pair of Stage 2 heads on my 2165 panelvan engine. They're Based on china die cast castings, you can find lots of pics including castings pics following this link:

http://panelvan.skynetblogs.be/2165-speed-delivery/

(http://static.skynetblogs.be/media/133712/2999666513.JPG)

Great looking heads and the air passages are good.  You want all the efficiency you can get when it comes to flowing air across the heads and exhaust ports to help pull heat out of the motor.  I will post shots of my REVMASTER HEADS later.

Rick Mortensen

Thanks for the link, those valve train set up pics are excellent!

Being a product of China makes it neither good or bad. It is the care and material, along with competent workers and good quality control that makes the product good or not. Open your I phone, I pad or Android and see where it was made... Yeah millions of pieces of Chinese crap.. That we rely on everyday.. with very few problems, Aircraft, fire fighting equipment, surgical tools, turbochargers, and yes air cooled VW parts.. If you use dirty metal and don't watch the QC on machining etc  .. yeah you can have a bad part.. but when you piss and moan about paying a little more for good stuff.. the people that make and sell stuff have no other recourse than to cut corners, or close up shop. Not Where, but HOW.

You also need cooling fins.  It is a balance between enough air flow and enough cooling fins.  In the pic above, I see a lack of cooling fins that the Mex heads have.

I have a set of these heads. The casting quality is beyond beautiful. They made the German heads they replaced look like half-melted lumps. As said before they machine beautifully (do yourself a favor and have the step flycut out to restore quench). I lightly radiused the chamber edges and they cleaned up perfectly. I didn't find any casting inclusions. All of the fins were clear.  The ports are slightly larger than stock.

I run them in about the most punishing place in the world: in a lifted Thing with a surrey top. If that doesn't kill them then nothing will and they've been in for three seasons now and have gone everywhere, including a 7,000-foot-pass on the way to Bonneville. I do about 8,000 miles a season on them and on the freeway I typically hold the speed at 70mph. I frequently hit 75 and occasionally 80 which is pretty much unheard of in a stock Thing with a normal top. My head temps stay cooler than ever and certainly leagues cooler than they were when I ran 6.8:1 and semi-hemi heads. Now I can't make the engine run hot without breaking the law or lugging it.

One thing I recommend: buy them bare and install good-quality valves, springs, keepers, and retainers. Oh yeah, and flycut the step out.

As noted earlier, the origins have little to do with quality. As has been frequently explained to me, the Chinese like everyone else will build per your spec. The problem is that most manufacturers are looking for the most profit  so they'll spec the poorest materials, roughest machine work, and cheapest parts in order to improve their profit margins. You can spec better quality but like everywhere else it'll cost you. The difference is that the cost of even the best Chinese quality is quite low.

Bottom line: these heads stand the test. The other ones I heard a lot of good about are Mofoco's. They're at least machined stateside and possibly cast here too.

This engine build was linked yesterday in Finland's biggest aircooled forum, Volkkaripalsta.com, as an exemplary constucted and thoroughly documented build. I have to agree, found out few tricks that I'm going to implement in my engine build routine. For example, copper paste smeared to intake manifold gaskets, supposedly to reduce sticking. Not sure however about degreeing piston ring gaps with 0,1 degrees accuracy  :P

Puavo

Not to take things even further off topic but...

Lithium grease is famous for preventing manifold gaskets from sticking but I've used plain ol' wheel-bearing grease for years with the same positive results.

People in the V-8 community swear by cherry-flavored Chapstick to prevent Holley fuel-bowl gaskets from sticking. I think any solid-wax lip balm will work regardless of flavor. And I'm sure the same antistick properties would apply to other gaskets.

People who do petty things like set ring gaps with such accuracy usually do so to make themselves feel better. Sometimes hard work makes success feel imminent. But I'm lazy and successful so I don't buy it.

If the casting is good and the metallurgy too, that´s almost the important part. If the maching is accurate, even better. As for the slick surface, well it looks good. The downside is that the total surface area is decreased and therefore they WILL dissapate less heat than a rugged (stock head) surface. One trick is to glass bead the heads to more or less restore the surface area.
As for long life capabilities, we will not see that in a looong time, because these cars simply do not see the mileage they did before in the day. The Baja racers (engine builders) are most likley the closest thing we get to get a"long life" evaluation. If they say thumbs up, it would be a good sign in my book.

I have experienced bad valves, bad retainers and a couple of incidents of bad valve guides in Chinese and cheapo Brazil heads. So when I have to do heads out of those i now replace all of that to something i know will work. The customers arent exactly thrilled by the extra cost, but if I have to warrant the engine, that´s the way its gonna be.

Some of the new Chinese heads, especially the stock valved ones, have way too large port volume for a stockish or mild performance engine, resulting in excessive lag and poor torque numbers. These heads work much better with a 37,5 mm inlet valve and corresponding port/bowl. That´s also what the Tims family is doing, with good reason.

T

That was the motivation for the VW-spec valves, keepers, springs, and retainers in my heads and I highly recommend it. Darren G left the production guides and seats in place. When I had the engine out to work on the tins this winter I yanked off a head and measured the valve-stem lash. The lash was like .0015" on #3 exhaust after 25,000 KM of pretty demanding use. I figured if it was that good on the hardest-worked cylinder then the others fared as well or better.


I was actually put off more by the larger exhaust port. The velocity has to be a bit low through it but my 1600 with 8.1:1, Kaduds, Mallory, and 1 3/8" and single QP makes my heavy lifted Thing run away and hide from lighter-weight beetles. These heads do well on a stock engine but would definitely do even better with larger displacement. especially an engine with a lower rod ratio to bring up the velocity. My next trick will be a 74mm or 76mm arm, more CR, and a high-lift/short duration cam. I think it would make the ultimate 'stock' engine.

the formula vee racers in ireland like em  :)

It is correct that the exh. port is on the large side too, but I did´nt want to go into a lengthy explanation  ;)  Another reason to up the intake valve size a bit.

Ben, I am not on edge with the Vee rule book, but I thought the Vee engines were only allowed to be 1300 cc. at least around here (?)  If they like´m it sort of explains itself, because these guys dont care much for torque but want all the higher rpm hp they can get. And a higher rpm engine likes a little higher I/E ratio than a normal rpm street engine.

T

Has someone got a link to one of these heads please?
I thought I knew the ones being discussed, but now I'm not sure. :-[