This is the same post from The Ultimate Aircooled Forum. If people have seen it sorry, Happy reading!

I never thought this day would come. I finally started on my heads! It's been a crazy year. The problem is I have a 9-5 job, and the heads get worked on after hours and on the weekends. I had to finish up a bunch of heads before I started on mine. Have to make money to pay the bills and make the customers happy.

The purpose of the post is to show what goes into building an engine for the new Super Stock class being run at the Drag Days and Bug-in. It’s a heads up start, 12 lb per cubic inch class. Basically you need as much power as you can wring out of the motor, cut a good light and hold on! First I will be showing what goes into building the heads, then the long block assembly, and finally the dyno and race reports.

First I would like to thank Rick Sadler @ Bugpack. I heard about their new Street Pro heads and called and asked him if he would let me use a set for this motor build. He told me a little more about the head, then gave me the ok to go wild on them. This head is different from other “stock casting” heads currently on the market. Instead of the usual “sand cast” process that uses a pattern to make a depression in sand, then aluminum is poured in, Bugpack decided to go with the more expensive but superior “permanent mold” process. Basically a big metal box with the reverse shape of the head is put together and the aluminum is poured directly into the box. This process gives a more uniform, better finish product with virtually no porosity. Also the tolerances are a lot tighter and core shift (when the core that forms the ports moves during the pouring process) is eliminated. When you put a Street Pro Head next to another stock type head, the differences are very apparent.

When setting up the port placement, I ran into a problem. To get my Super Duper port on the head I had to do some welding on the intake. If this issue is addressed on the next run I would honestly say this would be the best stock casting head out there bar none. Porting the Street Pro you can tell the material is hard and dense. The exhaust side is really nice with plenty of meat after putting my race exhaust port on. That is a big problem with other heads. Right where the fins are by the exhaust studs seems to always be really thin.

Here are some of the first pictures I took. The first one is prepping the head for welding. I clearance the void areas to get the torch in, and the other show adding a block between the chambers after cutting the top fin off. All stock heads have this problem because in street form it’s better to have the airflow between the chambers. The chambers have already been flycut down .300 in. The head seems hard with no porosity. That’s a good sign. Other heads get soft and pitty when you flycut them that far.

Again, I would like to thank Rick @ Bugpack for trusting me to showcase his product. I want to thank Roger @ Heads Up/House of Power for letting me use the facilities again. Hopefully all that Super Street horsepower rubs off on this motor. Thanks to Doug @ D&A Racing Engines for the engine assembly help and for setting up the Super Stock Class. It really breathed life into a dismal VW heads up world. And thanks to Albert @ Dominator Engineering for doing MORE upgrades to the Green Mamba. I’ll be there to help soon!

Prep for weld

Top fin removed

Filler block ready for weld

Looks good. Will be interested to see progress.

I like the sound of the category. Most sense I have heard for a category lately. Heads up racing is the bomb

Can't wait to see the update as they come through.

This Pic shows the support bar welded in and the chambers modified with a bit of weld. Trying to get max compression.


Here is the intake flange after welding. Big Power port scribed and ready for porting.

soooo neat

Exhaust port scribed and ready for grinding.




Cutting intake seat pocket on Serdi. Note how seats are siamesed. This with the combination of the bronze seat material keeps the seats locked in. Scott Bakken has this set up and I haven't done a valve job in over three years! Believe it or not!

This seat arangement is the setup you HAVE to run. There are a couple different grades and alloys of "Bronze" or "copper" seats. Most offer at least a 20% increase in thermal conductivity over steel. That helps "cool" the valve when it comes in contact with the seat. Bronze seats also have a rate of thermal expansion closer to Aluminum. In an air cooled head that means you can put a seat in with less press (.008 vs .012) and the seat won't move around when the head gets hot. Some turbo guys like to run really high exhaust temps (Dominic Luppino??) and these seats make the valve job last much longer. The seat stays place in the head, and it stays round so when the head goes back to room temperature the valve job is where you originally put it.

Anthony D&A Racing

I don't know if you guys have ever seen the HOUSE of POWER'S porting room. These beautiful ladies watched my back as I have ground away thousands of pounds of chips over the 11 years I have worked there. You might say they are a little dated in there look, but hot is hot no matter what decade. On this project all I have to do is close the door and I'm transported back to the early 80's. The time when Roger's Bad Company, Mike Smith, and Kris Klingerman were tearing it up in NHRA Super Stock. Those were the guys I idolized when I was a little punk kid dreaming that one day I could bolt a set of IDA's on my 1835 and go screaming down the street!

Anthony D&A Racing

Here is the heads with some material missing. As you can see I don't have time to keep the room tidy! I still think there are some 9 second Super Street chips on the bench.


Exhaust port roughed out.

Sorry for the overload of information. I'm relaxing after work with a couple beers. Getting caught up with my passion, sorry!

That is no problem, keep it coming, its good to see your work.

thanks for posting Anthony. It is great to see how it is done!

Keep it up mate, we're relaxing too.

Ooooo I wish for some 9 second chips

Haha, I admired those lovely ladies upon a recent visit to House of Power. The 1980s seems to be all the rage in current fashion over here with the young crew so don't be surprised if the latest swim suit models revert back to high cut swimwear and big hair (up top)

Thanks for taking the time to show the mods to the new heads, certainly is very interesting.
Al

Nice work Anthony!
Looking forward to seeing the finished chambers!
What brand of electric die grinder have you found to be the most reliable?

This picture shows both seats installed and the IDs bored out. There are many thoughts on seat ID ratio. I set mine at 88% of the valve diameter. Sometimes you can get better flow in the bench by going bigger, but the trade off on airspeed is not worth it. I want to see a good flowing port with high airspeed. That way you get good cylinder filling and ultimately good horsepower.

Finished intake port. The camera was having a hard time showing the finish. It looks more polished than it actually is.



Finished exhaust port. I need a sponsor for some lotion for my hands!



Chamber side view of bowls.

That isn't the guide length I'm running. I leave a dummy guide in and port it off, then spot face it and R&R the new guide. It leave a better finished area around the guide opening.

Serdi Seat and guide machine. This is where all the magic happens.



Roughing the valve job in. I set the seat heights so I can see where the chamber floor and flycut depth need to be. Valve job on intake is a 3 angle. Exhaust side gets 2 angles and a radius to the throat diameter.



First time the valve hit the seats. 44x37.5 Manley titanium.

wow nice work. I love seeing how machine work is done