The Cal-look Lounge

years ago I posted a similar topic on the other forum, but I bet we can get into in depth here as well.

I'm always a sucker for vintage performance methods.

What different head porting styles have come and gone over the years? In the early days, prior to any of the aftermarket VW heads, which were some of the most popular trends in cylinder head modification? Today everybody has a stiffy over the CNC Wedgeport. In the late 60's and early 70's, I know cars like the Iguana were running a "square" intake port. There has been much discussion over the Lonnie Reed "wedge port", and now we can see the old Gene and Gary Berg heads that were on Berglar, and were originally on a roundy round car (weren't these heads made in a day?). Enter the 1980's and we get the Super Flow, and the Street Eliminator and now the 044.

Why do you think trends have changed? If those A/MC and B/MC cars could go so fast for their cc, which "magic" head configurations did they use? The super fast smallish cc street cars? Let's open this one up and get some good gabbing going.

 This topic will be even better if we can trace the history of who was teaching who when it comes to porting. Fumio Fukajjo was teached by the guy who started Racing Beat (wankel motor builder) and what about Gene Berg and Dean Lowrey....did not one weld the ports and the other one used Devcon F but the configuration was rather the same........I wish guys like Jeff Denhem and Dave Kawell could shed some light on this..........Bill Clarksson and Dirty Dave Venderberke as well as Steve Timms did there own porting and must have made some impact as they was fast but not in the business of selling heads at the time......Lonnie Reed and the head shop did a major step in design with the wedge ports and I always thought that this is what killed the square port heads. Bill Mitchel is not to be forgotten in this topic. I like to hear this story as well as how the desing changed over the years.

good point, man. Who welded the first set? Who made the first "oval ports" (like Gary Berg heads in the Hot VWs article elsewhere)? Don Ruckman's "Sonic Muffin" ran Berg square port heads. What about Underdog 1? What did F.A.T. heads look like? What heads did Sarge have on his bad ass 1835? Yes, FF heads....some stories? Deano heads....of course...where did he learn his magic?

There's a few Japanese guys in the history of this hobby that did stuff over in the States mainly between the mid 60's and mid 80's I think of which not too much is now known?

The Underdog ran square-port heads back in the day that were done by Ron Fleming.  Then, there were the angle-port heads that Darrell Vittone and Fumio came up with...the angle was at the exhaust port and was a 45 degree bend rather then a 90 degree as in a normal head (wish I had a picture...I tried calling Vittone, but he said they only had this set up for a very short period and had no photos).  The next step was welding and I'd like to think it was DV and Fumio who came up with this but I'm not too sure.  When I built my sandrail in 1974, Darrell introduced me to Fumio and I ordered two new Type III bare heads through the parts dept at the dealership where I was working at the time.  I gave these to Fumio and he did his magic...welded, large intake ports and 40X35.5 valves.  These went on a 78.4X92 engine with an Engle 125 and made 155hp @5500 rpm on DV's dyno.  I wish to this day I'd never let the car go with those heads.  The best part was being charged $275.00 for the weld/port job(a fortune back then  ;D).  Those were the days...

Sarge, those Vittone/Fukaya angle port heads sold for $1,500.00 on the Samba a few years ago.
I missed them buy just a few minutes !
 :'(

somewhere I have an old Hot VWs article about the angle flow heads. Pretty innovative.

Also, Autocraft, in the 70's or 80's made those midget race heads that were a VW rocker chamber and valve-cover rail that was screwed to a brand new aftermarket casting. They were wild to say the least. The intake ports were HUGE. I think Autocraft offered a less radical VW based head too, welded up and had intake manifold studs moved out probably 3/4" each way, and a huge rectangular intake port. A friend of mine went an easy 12.00's with these heads on his street 2332 in a street car. Wild stuff.

Now what about those strange Berg "split port" IDA manifolds in the old catalogs.....WTF were those for?

Thanks again Sarge for the wisdom from the past....you da man!
 ;D

When was the mini d port introduced? A great head for street motors that need port velocity for bottom end torque. Nice small ports which, I assume, do not even require welding on a stock dual port head. I got my L5 heads from DRD and I think that Darren used to work for Steve and Greg Tims ???

I always thought it would be cool to get a set of heads from Fumio because he was around when everything was booming.

It's not too late....(951) 784-1251   8) ;D

Yeah, I knew he is still around. Some day... ;D

I am amazed at what a set of unwleded Tims heads can do. There have been some fast cars with those over the years.

Here are two Of Steve Tims Heads Non Welded and Welded  I had Steve do a set of Welded heads for me over 20 years ago when he was in Bell  Steves Heads have always Made Good H.P.

The bottom ones are his signature series heads. They are what he recommended to me when I told them I wanted to run an 86c or fk-45.

Just to clear something up, now there are angle flows which are cast with angled exhaust ports. These are different than the ones Sarge is talking about right? Who came up with the idea of using the crossworth style port?

--louis

As I recall, Joe Vittone sponsored two Japanese guys to come to the States and work for him as cylinder head porters. The first one was Takayuki Oku, who went on to open Race Beat and do rotary engines. The other was of course, Fumio Fukaya. (I remember going to Bakersfield March Meet one year with Greg Aronson and Jim Holmes, and we went to dinner with Vittone, Bently and Fumio, and I sat next to Fumio.... He didn't speak a word of English, but he always would nod and smile a lot)..

Those angle-port heads Fumio did for the A/MC car made about 8hp more, along with going to the Engle VF6 cam. But when they put that engine (82x89) into the car, it went slower.... Heads came off, and back to a more traditional port design.

Don't forget the cast iron combusion chambers heads as well. Both Gene Berg, and Dick Nuss/Bill Duncan ran these way back when. EMS still ran a steel combusion chamber in their more recent Super Street car, using a Pauter casting. They swore by them to retain a valve job for many races.

Don Pauter also worked with an angle-port head, using steel tubes pressed into the exhaust ports as flanged-stubs (similar to T-4). They ran them on their sand dragster back in the mid-seventies.

I had some heads done in the seventies and eighties that were Autocraft stage 1,2,3,4 and those
wicked billet 3 piece heads.....stage 5....the early heads had a D shape and later as they welded them more the
stage three had a real large "D" to the stage 4 having more of a square port....and the Fives were just huge oval shape
then after that was the pro series "910".....I still have a couple sets of those early ones, but we cut them
so much there is no first fin on them.
I have a set of the first street eliminators that are black coated from CB that Kawell did and they are
definatley nice! again  we cut them so much the first fin is barely hanging on.
I would like to get a set of Fumio heads just to check out and try ..............

Rimco had a "special" plunge cut that Kawell usually asked for. It was later called the "Kawell Cut" that bored the combustion chambers down to the edge of the spark plugs..... You do the math.

There are also european made heads in the 60's.
Ritter for example designed and build performance heads. Combustion chambers were re-designed and fly cut.
The most well know were Okrasa.

Here is a Picture of these Special FF Heads... ;)

Frank

Nice job, Frank!  We used to dune with a guy named Freddy many years ago that ran those heads...always drew a crowd at the hill.

You're Welcome Sarge... ;D

Frank

who knows about the Porsche-Salzburg modded VW heads from the 70's for rally use?

back in the day circa 1974 - i has a 69mm roller with 88mm ks p&c's - R&R did the heads - large round port, shaved guides with large valves and a single 48 IDA - motor was a screemer - pulled to no ends - R&R was in a shop in sears point - very nice heads for the time

Did'nt they run modifyed Porsche heads on theyr rally cross cars? Or was that a bit later. They had some overhead cammed turbo beasts in the early 80s...

somewhere online I saw some pics of the modded VW heads that were on the Salzburg cars....looked kind of similar to the Lonnie Reed wedge port actually, but larger ports.

I remember the R&R gang...Dave Bonbright is still in sonoma.....engine masters!
Mr. McKenzie has the old chopped and channel R&R bug....

Is Fumio still in buisness?

Fumio Fukaya Enterprises
4000 S Alamo St.
Riverside, Ca 92501
909 784-1251

You better hook up quick though.... he has arthritis in his hands pretty bad last I heard.

I tried to buy some FF heads a while back but the guy didn't want to deal out of State (is it very difficult to get parts from the Mid-West to California?  :P ). I was planning on paying the asking but they were still up for sale at a reduced price over a month later but whatever I would like a to have a pair at some point, to me his heads are way up there with the best of the old school. Not quite the same but no longer available I have some Pauter B's which may yet go back on an engine at some point. They were swapped out of my engine but I still have a thing about running them again.

It was the Stage 5 Autocrafts that I remember from the mid 1980's... the "composite" heads. A friend of mine, simply known as "Big Frank" had a set of Stage 3 or 4 A.C.'s in his garage that were used on his little neumann Draeger roundy round car, or WERE going to be used. I actually traded Big Frank my Super Flows with longer valves, etc for a set of those black Street Eliminator "SCS" heads from the 1980's... still wonder what ever happened to those "black heads". They actually didn't run that hard.

what about the scat split port heads, one head per cylinder

seemed to make good power, one of the early 90's brit racers had them on his car but cant remember which one  ???

Lonnie Reed Square ports anyone

Didn't Jason Popper end up with those?

my Super Flows yeah, not the black SE heads. I think they went on that 2276 that was built @ BH with Engle 110 and 40IDFs and made a scorching 107hp  :o ::)

The way I understand it, Berg read an article in Hot Rod magazine about square port heads on a Pontiac (I think) and thought it might work on VWs as well.  Ron Fleming worked for Berg back then so for a while there, the hot setup was the square port head. I remember that when we were thrashing on the Underdog at the races, we covered the heads so no one could see the ports. I believe later it was discovered it was one corner of the square that was doing all the magic so the port shape of choice became a tear drop shape.

Sarge, you got one hell of a deal as about the same time I sent Fumio a set of bare heads with larger valve seats, valves, springs and welded by Auto Craft. After a couple of months, the heads were shipped back COD, all assembled and a beautiful porting job..........$850 labor!!! I had about $1300 invested in those heads total and as you said, a hell of lot of money back in the 70s.

Marc Buehler
51 split

Since this post was first made I had to go back through all my early 70's pictures and find a shot I took of Vittone's Race Shop 67 Modified Compact heads. This was taken at a division 7 points race at Sacramento Drag Strip. Dave Andrews had his blue 67 there and if I remember right Darrell had a white 67. This was the first time I had seen the angled ports (sometime around 73'-74' if I remember right. Dave Vanderbeke, the Schley's and many others were there too. It was a great weekend.

Rick Mortensen

John Brewster at Autocavan. Terrible heads. Seized valve guides was a problem due to lack of oiling. Needed an externally-fed spray bar to direct oil onto valve springs/stems to stop them seizing in the head.

Gotta' love that cheese ball glass fuel filter in close proximity to a hot exhaust pipe in Rick's picture.  See guys, small fuel line; fast race car :o ;)!

http://cal-look.no/lounge/index.php/topic,9724.0.html

Good point Keith. Think about how much of the exhaust guide or boss would be exposed to the exhaust port on the heads.  Superflows casted this type port. Dean Lowry really liked them but then again they put a lot more meat around the area and I believe the port had a little less angle. They were interesting but you did not see to many of them. Probably for the very reasons you stated.

I liked the ingenuity of the early guys. Still, Fumio's heads always seemed to work no matter who ran them and they were not as radical as some would think. Dean Lowry did the heads that were on my teal green 67 and the ports were not huge. They were welded ported heads but I was impressed at the flow numbers Dean pulled out of them for me. I wanted all the air speed to work for me with no more than .520 lift at the valve for my street engine. If you listen to my burnout on Ocean Street Video, I had my 2110cc motor at 7,000 rpms and it was buzzing along nicely.

I am impresed at what the CNC CB heads do out of the box.  You'd pay $1,200 to $1,400 25 years ago for what you can buy in a set of wedgeports today for less. The hobby has progressed nicely with more choices and parts available than in the early years.

Rick M

the sideways D port "wedgeports" a la Lonnie Reed, but done on my 040 heads by Jeff Denham (for SCAT) were probably the best street head I have ever driven. Combined with 9.3:1 and an 86C, it was almost too much power. No camminess, just explosive, neck-wrenching power no matter what rpm or gear. My old 2276 was the motor I loved most. You could hear the snap and the viciousness in the bite of the exhaust note. With big heavy tires, anchor Jap BRMs, full interior, full tank of 92 octane, spare tire, etc, that motor went 12.91, 12.74 and 12.66, all with 40mm vents.
They get my vote.

I was in my storage room looking for something, saw this and thought some people might be interested.
This manifold is off of the Under Dog.
Square port heads were the secret weapon at one time.

Marc Buehler

Gene Berg spead ports 1976 and old angle exhaust

"Gene Berg spead ports 1976 and old angle exhaust"  



Now.... that's cool!

More old parts and one new one (are there empi 88 in the boxes)

Thats some seriously coool stuff ;D

opps can someone pass a tissue!!!! :o :o they are too cool : 8)

saw some awfully cool stuff today, circa 1970-72, makes you wonder if we've come that far....

I enjoyed reading all the impute everyone had on the “History of the ported VW head? Styles that have come and went....’.  A real step back in time. Thank You

http://www.salzburgkaefer.at/rallye/technik/index.html
german, but pics of the motor, it was a 1600cc with stock exhaust internally modified and 46 IDAs, 125 DIN hp on a non c/w crank and 9:1
denzel in Vienna also made square port heads

Some more details in the article which Karl H mentions above:

The Porsche Salzburg type 1 rally engines first started with 1584cc displacement; later 1599cc and achieved up to 125hp. Engine case only received some modifications for a dry sump oiling system. The heads were flycut 1mm (0.040") and reshaped into a semi-hemi combustion chamber which provided 9:1 compression ratio. 40mm intake valve, stock 32mm exhaust. Special D-shaped intake ports to match the intake shapes from the Sauer & Sohn manifolds. Stock fuel pump. Carbs were initially Solex P40II from a Porsche 912; later came Weber 46 IDA from a Porsche 904 which were modified for this engine specifically in Maranello. The muffler was a stock unit but gutted internally, along with stock but gutted pea shooters. A stock camshaft was reground to a "secret grind", made by Porsche Salzburg's engine wizard Paul Schwarz and his son on their home basement camshaft grinding machine.  The flywheel was lightened 2 Kg (4.4 lbs) and balanced along with the crankshaft. The pistons were based on stock production units.

The article provides some details on the dry sump oiling system, and suspension modifications.

Years ago I bought a $100 set of IDA`s at work too. But my boss got pissed and made me sell them to him. Only because I was on his time. He never used them. After looking at the old show pictures I can see that I need to get mine out. I was at the same shows.

On my car right now -- -- a glutton for punishment

(http://i586.photobucket.com/albums/ss306/Fiatdude/gettingclose.jpg) (http://s586.photobucket.com/user/Fiatdude/media/gettingclose.jpg.html)

Something doesn't add up here.
If you take a stock DP head for a 1600cc engine at 7.5:1 CR and ruin it with a hemi cut, you'll be down around 6:1 CR (or lower).  A 1mm flycut isn't going to get you up to 9:1.

I wonder what they really did?

Stock chamber 43cc, +9cc for the head step, +9cc for the piston height = 7.5:1 comp.

Stock chamber, flycut away the step and a further .040" = 36cc, add 8cc or so for a shallow hemi-cut as the pics seem to show then new chamber = 44cc.
Piston deck height at .040" gives 6cc, so new comp is now set at around 9:1.

I've just gone through all the figures on my 1584 I'm putting together, so it's still fresh in my mind.

Man this is a good thread... definitely makes me feel spoiled for choice with any variation of CNC wedgeports available for pretty much whatever you've got to spend. Currently running a set of the EMPI GTV-2 Stage 1 Wedgeports (40x35.5, 170 CFM) with some light polishing in the ports, 44 HPMXs, 8.75:1 plus an FK-8 on a 1914. Hasn't been down the track since tuning, but we're hoping for 14s at 6000 feet. I'm having a hard time imagining the time and effort the old guys really put into their heads, back before computerized CNC mills and flow benches, but it really gives one an appreciation for their efforts.

my 2084 cc motor I built in 1976 for my 68 sedan had welded 40 x 35.5 heads that John Crawford had done for me,( Rogers older brother ) it ran 13:30's in the 1/4
with a 125 Engle cam and 48 IDA's

I now own these Fumio heads....

Dean, those are a bit cool! Is there any history behind them, and what car they may have been used in? And just as importantly, can you show some closer pictures of the ports please? Ive always wondered about the angle of the exhaust manifolds!

Those Fumio heads came from Darrell Vittone back around 1973. They were purchased by Doug Marcum of OK, and run for a few years with a best time of 11.40. They were later sold to Butch Thomas (OK) who ran them for a few years, but replaced them with Deano's about 1976. They have been sitting in a box ever since. I got them with matching Empi manifolds, a prized Chas Morse hand-made merged exhaust system. Heads still have 42 x36 valves and spring from Fumio and measure 29cc in the chambers. Those headers slip right into the exhaust ports and slide up to a machined/welded step. Two 8mm studs were welded to the outside, which actually holds the pipe(s) in place.

I think most people have forgotten that Clyde has been doing all of the port work at Bergs since the mid 70s....he told me he was only 14 when he started...HE has some great head stories...

hey deano i can't wait to hear and see that engine running  ;D ;D

Thank you Dean, I'd seen a couple of pictures of the heads before (Dave Andrews, Darrell 's white '67) but not with that level of detail. Seems like machining the head is the "easy" part but making and fitting the header is the trickier bit.
Are they a garage ornament, or are they destined to be fitted to something soon?

I never thought I would ever find a pair of those rare Fumio heads complete with exhaust, but they just came up for sale on FB. With those now in hand, I have been collecting all the other parts needed to build the complete engine, period correct 1972. So, I'm build a 2090cc, using an 84 Okrasa crank, knife-edged and wedgemated, Childs & Albert 5.7 rods, 89mm Mahle slipper skirt pistons and biral Empi cylinders, Engle VF-3 cam, Empi mag sump and pulley, Joe Hunt magneto with tach drive and Hunt timing ring, '72 universal case with 10mm studs, Empi 1.4 rockers, Empi valve covers, Empi cross-bar linkage, oil filter top mount, Nickerson oil pump and Accel wires. Pretty much the exact engine that Darrell Vittone ran back in 1972-era.

Nice, Dean!!  I remember Fast Freddie's sand rail having those style heads years ago up until a tiny grain of sand stuck
a nitros valve open on one side of the motor... big explosion with major damage to lots of stuff.

Sarge, are you still in contact with "Fast" Freddie? If so, I would like to get in touch with him... Deano

(https://s18.postimg.org/bj4qelrsp/20170730_104617.jpg) (https://postimg.org/image/4so9564mt/)

Heads From Lyle's car

Gday again Joel.
 :)

Ask him nicely to send me a pic of some old-style intake ports (or pics of yours  ;D)that DON'T have a port that turns a 1584 into a light switch at 3000! Hahaha!
Great fun to drive, but I still obviously go just that little bit too far.........  ::)

Great pics in this thread.

Sorry, no luck here.  The undisputed Wheelie-King in a mid-engine car!

Neat line up of parts. Very cool.

Call him...

Talking about angleflows....I stumbled upon these on TS and remembered this thread

https://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/detail.php?id=2150227

(https://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/pix/7800066.jpg)
(https://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/pix/7800065.jpg)
(https://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/pix/7800067.jpg)
(https://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/pix/7800068.jpg)
(https://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/pix/7800069.jpg)
(https://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/pix/7800070.jpg)

∆∆what are those?

Hello, check what I found today whiel digging hard to find some parts, if I remember correctly those have to be sauer und sohn prepared heads -correct me if I write wrong- based on 043 german castings, lots of compression too

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1RnMLBs7LttrUPaVSwPBkiGRcJBR7PO0u

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1J8L7Oa3N7yriUkTpO8jKAwjsxIsPkTpY

https://drive.google.com/open?id=12CKxV_ulGqIIS3LIGY_zu0r6xNoysxcA

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1kduq7QfzjJDhs_Xo0UKnbg-znLT6u3uM

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1hZ2vh8Dl4N8CM81jtC8-qncKCUVhbFlA

friendly

Dimitrios

This year will be 45 years since the Head Shop "wedge port" design was introduced, still being used by Bugpack/EMPI.   

This post was more of a test, and to try to figure out how to add pictures.

I remember getting the Superflo ported heads in like 1982 from SCS guys in Anaheim. I was running a lot of Pauter parts, being military in San Diego. Also had some Berg stuff in engine. I had Pauter shaft rollers on those 42.5 x37 units. Ran like special wedged pushrod, engine had Chevy rods.

Ok picture loading, that didn't work. Darn 1st attempt. But cool I think I just figured it out. We went cruising for races, leaving the polish on two of our cars, just to get attention. The 1835 on the left, and my 2110 on the right.
[attachment=1]