post for ugly duckling

[Jim Ratto]

Hi UD...

How popular is/was that split port head like you posted a picture of? Is the idea to straighten the intake port? Looks like an incredible amount of welding and remachining intake flange and moving plugs (is that to clear manifolds?)
I have always wondered about the pciture of the Berg manifolds in the old catalogs and wondered what the heck they were for. Does moving the intake port out like that make a lot more power? I remember an old friend of mine had some Autocraft heads off of a midget from the early 80's that had been welded up and had intake ports widened out and manifold studs moved out. We never ran them (they got stolen from his garage) but they looked like the solution for HIGH RPM. Anyway, those heads in your picture look like they have hours into them....tell us more if you don't mind.

Thanks,

JIM

[Rune]

Moving the ports out will help the flow in the manifolds when using IDAs. Normal tall IDA manifolds need olot of work to flow well.. Moving the ports out will give a straighter runner. The IDA is a to wide carb for VW style heads really....

[ugly duckling]

hello jim . if im not mistaken the hole split port manifold idea why gene did it is when they were reg racing across the country in the 70s it was easyer for them to pull the engine carbs and all at once  if they had to between rounds at least that is what clyde told me at one time. and also probebly to gain port volume. not that the littel heads 42x37 non split port  dont work we obvisly no they did and still do. it is very difficult to make the heads yes i think i have scin canser from all the uv rays that i have soaked up but thats cool because i enjoyed the chalenge. i have done 2pair and one test head. all were older mid 80s 041 base with the thick surrounding chambers. deffenetly more stronger and favirible on deep fly cut compaired to the older 311 heads. the first test head was a SQ port it had 46x 36 and flowed 256cfm at 25 in. at 650 lift. the first pair were square also a tad bit bigger not much the valves were 47x37 with off set ex guides with your camel hump welded chamber. they flowed 270cfm at 25in at 750lift. major work went into that paticular set i had to move the spring purches up as i rember about 300 thou to take atvantage of port volume around the guide. the second set as you see them in the pictures are 47x37 obvisly oval thought i would try somthing different this time around. they dont flow as good as the first but im thinking the airspeed is alot better and more drivible. they flow 240cfm at 650 at 25in. to me its realy the chalenge of building the heads and having them stomp on a half way descent set of autocrafts or superflows. alot of people have ask me why just go buy a pair of after market heads. and i say what fun would that be. even thogh i do have angel flows on my tractor. yes i will build another set but only for my self. i dont want to keep people waiting forever its not fair. when you do heads like this you have to treat them like they were yours being that they do take along time to create the motivation does go way down and its hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel but when there done oh what a feeling and its realy not about the money even thoug yes i need to get paid its realy about the chalenge. im not a scientest by no means its all about trial and era some people are good with numbers and books. im good with my hands eyes and some of my mind. i try. take care.UD

[ugly duckling]

heres a few more pictures. lets just say in the 70s the split port was the sh!!t but very pricey in deed the only guys that i know that ran them where of coarse gary B. rich cowels. ducan and nuss. roger crawford. and a few others im sure but not to many more. back then they were running the cast iron slug chambers some of them anyway. thats what is nice about the later 041 they are more split port freindly as far as the chamber is concernd. UD.

[louisb]

That is some insane crazy work.   Looks cool though.

How about converting them to angle flows. 

--louis

[Jim Ratto]

hello jim . if im not mistaken the hole split port manifold idea why gene did it is when they were reg racing across the country in the 70s it was easyer for them to pull the engine carbs and all at once  if they had to between rounds at least that is what clyde told me at one time. and also probebly to gain port volume. not that the littel heads 42x37 non split port  dont work we obvisly no they did and still do. it is very difficult to make the heads yes i think i have scin canser from all the uv rays that i have soaked up but thats cool because i enjoyed the chalenge. i have done 2pair and one test head. all were older mid 80s 041 base with the thick surrounding chambers. deffenetly more stronger and favirible on deep fly cut compaired to the older 311 heads. the first test head was a SQ port it had 46x 36 and flowed 256cfm at 25 in. at 650 lift. the first pair were square also a tad bit bigger not much the valves were 47x37 with off set ex guides with your camel hump welded chamber. they flowed 270cfm at 25in at 750lift. major work went into that paticular set i had to move the spring purches up as i rember about 300 thou to take atvantage of port volume around the guide. the second set as you see them in the pictures are 47x37 obvisly oval thought i would try somthing different this time around. they dont flow as good as the first but im thinking the airspeed is alot better and more drivible. they flow 240cfm at 650 at 25in. to me its realy the chalenge of building the heads and having them stomp on a half way descent set of autocrafts or superflows. alot of people have ask me why just go buy a pair of after market heads. and i say what fun would that be. even thogh i do have angel flows on my tractor. yes i will build another set but only for my self. i dont want to keep people waiting forever its not fair. when you do heads like this you have to treat them like they were yours being that they do take along time to create the motivation does go way down and its hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel but when there done oh what a feeling and its realy not about the money even thoug yes i need to get paid its realy about the chalenge. im not a scientest by no means its all about trial and era some people are good with numbers and books. im good with my hands eyes and some of my mind. i try. take care.  UD.

thanks for taking the time to post all the answers and info. I can imagine just the weld up alone and drilling and tapping for manifold studs is a day of work. Cool insight.

see ya Jeff,
Jim

[ugly duckling]

more like daysssss  the key is keeping the valve cover rail as true as possilble you still have to when welding is all said and done lay a coulpel of beads on the top valve cover rail and reserface. its deffenetly a weld fest. UD.

[Udo]

I only moved the headstuds some weeks ago and like to do some flow tests the next weeks . For me it is a little easier useing my own IDA maifold castings and weld some material to matchport the manifolds . This is not so much work than the spread ports and makes it a little more affordable . I posted that i did the work for the Berg manifolds 15 years ago . These heads are still on the track !!
By the way , Clyde did the same work on their superflow heads and matchported them to the spread port manifolds . They did this on the original heads before they started making their superflow heads .

Udo

[Bewitched666]

Didnt SCAT offer split heads way back??

[Udo]

Those where 4 single heads .

Udo

[Jon]

Impressive work on those heads Jeff! I would love to build some heads like these in the future, just for the "fun" of it.
You say the Bergs ran some like these, could that be because they were limited to using stock castings in any way? Either by regulation ore due to cooling issues?
And would you say they used short intakes on these heads, as short intakes would seem to work much better with this set up, less twists and turns from the wide IDA and down.
BTW for this amount of welding, would you use a MIG with alu thread or TIG?? And what gives the best tan? ;-)

[ugly duckling]

hi jhu. back then ide say around 1975to 1982 when things were hot and heaive and no real after market heads were out there yet and the oem stuff is all they had. so im sure that they wanted the edge on the comp verses reg base oem welded heads.  the superflows dident hit the seen until im pretty sure it was sometime in 83. i had my first set in early of 84.and yes udo im aware of everything that clyde has done i aprseate the insight i worked with the family on three different ocasion in my life. clyde taght me the basices 101 of head porting and after that i took it to the next level. i owe alot  to gene and clyde for letting the ball start to roll if it wasent for thoese 2 people who knows what i would have done as far as the cly head part of my ACVW life . needed to get that out in the air. JHU the manifolds that you see in the picture are the size they used i dont want give any speed secrets away lets just say they were a little bit different then the one you buy over the counter.and also i tig the 5 heads that i did i weld them in sections keeping the warpage down to a minimum. i know that clyde likes to mig at least he used to. im sure the mig would be easyer as far as filling fast. i prefure tig but thats me.hope i dident ramble to much sorry if i did need to vent sometimes. UD.   

[cameron shorey]

Hi Jeff,

Do you have any comments, or insight into the cast iron inserts the Bergs were putting in combustion chambers?

[SOB/RFH]

I remember that at one time (mid 70's)  the heads could be bought from VW without the combustion chamber, intake and exhaust ports and no guides were drilled.......still know of a few set in exictense!!

[Udo]

Impressive work on those heads Jeff! I would love to build some heads like these in the future, just for the "fun" of it.
You say the Bergs ran some like these, could that be because they were limited to using stock castings in any way? Either by regulation ore due to cooling issues?
And would you say they used short intakes on these heads, as short intakes would seem to work much better with this set up, less twists and turns from the wide IDA and down.
BTW for this amount of welding, would you use a MIG with alu thread or TIG?? And what gives the best tan? ;-)

Jon
The manifolds are no longer avaliable , if you want a set i can sell mine . They are new . I think about it 

Udo

[SOB/RFH]

There is also a set of spread port manifolds at Dalhms in Seden (some one ordered the wron part number) if someone wants to walk the walk!!

[ugly duckling]

hello cameron. this is my own therey but probebley why they did this would have been that the early 311 heads had such a thin surowding chamber when you flycut down 0200 they would break throu sure you can weld up but you are still going to have to serface down the road and its just going to get thin again. i would think the cast iron would hold up for years still soft in its own way just as long as the head dident come loose and pound the serface. but then you have the problem with the valve jobs on the cast iron/ steel chamber im sure they did reg VJ mantinance so i would think this part of the chamber would fade away way faster then it would be time for new slugs. i guess it would be more cost effective instead of tossing the heads. im sure duncan and nuss had alot  to do with alot of inovation with there version of  heads also.its been awile since ive seen one of the slugs i cant rember if there would be room for removible valve seats i gusse it would all depend on how thick it is from the bottem of the seat to were the actual bottem of the slugs enters the ports.defenetly a cool idea and im sure there are  other theries behind the slugs also. sorry about the spelling i know its crap. you probebly already new all this stuff your a smart cookie if i rember right your just testing my wits  thats cool you have a good one cameron. UD 

[Jim Ratto]

hey Jeff,

I don't want you to spill all your secrets so don't...but looking at that oval port spread port head in the other post you can see the definite "hump" at floor of port just above guide area. Is that for the spring floor in the rocker chamber or is that there for airflow/speed?

I just keep tripping on those heads. 

[ugly duckling]

thats a spring lump and for some guide suport if i would have pulled up the spring purches there would be hardly any lump at all but i wanted the heads to get done in some time the year 2000 mark not 3000. they took long engouf. they would have flowed alot better to. but ya know flow isnt the hole picture. if the guy that owns the heads gets his combo right on the money theres no reason why that engine couldent make 260ish and more this is my gusetimation. also the manifolds in the center are still on the small side with no weld what so ever on the out side of the manifold so there is deffent room for improvement. UD.