2019 PRI disasters & New BBC heads

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David Vizard
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2019 PRI disasters & New BBC heads

Post by David Vizard »

Pre – PRI was something of a rush just to get my seminar together. After getting what I thought would be a three-hour presentation ready by the day before flying out to Indy I took the day off to prepare myself for the usually rush here there and every-where that the Indy venue brings about.
The day of the flight (Wed) went fine – or so I thought. Seems I picked up a bronchial virus that started pulling me down the next day. This wiped out so much energy that I took the advice of my friends and rented an electric scooter from Indy Scooter Rentals. The scooter they supplied came complete with and electric equivalent to boost control. Top speed was an estimated 7-8 mph. That is a pretty speedy jogging speed.
This scooter deal was a great experience. I could carry all my catalogs, computer, product samples etc. with no personal expenditure of energy. Also, when you are in a wheel chair of any sort other people very politely make way for you. If I had not followed advice here, I would not have survived PRI in any functional form!
So how did the seminar held on Friday afternoon (2-5pm) go? Well, to be honest not as well as it could have done.
By Friday afternoon it was apparent that whatever bug I picked up on the flight to Indy was getting the better of me.
My first blunder was to miss phrase a sentence by forgetting the right wording and saying the first thing that came to mind. It did not come out quite as I intended and the ladies that were present (and there were far more than I would have expected) were offended and all but one got up and left. The Monday following PRI was a call all concerned and apologize. Fortunately, I was graciously forgiven.
The next blunder was a question of timing. I can normally estimate how long a pre-prepared Power Point seminar will last to within 5-10 minutes. Probably due to still in recovery from my brain surgery last April I found that not only was my time estimate way off by more than 90 minutes but also I found that I was not recognizing peoples faces. That includes many I have known well for over 30 years. Their names – well that seemed to be no problem as did recollection of the projects we may have done. I thought before going to Indy that this may be a small problem – you know – forget 2 or 3 faces but no - it was more like 20! Very embarrassing. If you are one of those people who said hi and spoke to me for a few moments and all I did was to return a slightly be-fuddled look when I would have normally recognized you then my apologies.
OK - enough of my social blunders here. What did the show reveal in the way of news worthy power producers? If you are a BB Chevy fan like me then the simple answer to that is – HEADS!
There are a ton of good to excellent 24-degree castings out there most of which I cover in detail in my BB Chevy book volume II. As I have pointed out on many occasions the regular 24-degree heads suffer from an overly large combustion chamber due to the 24-degree angle that the head is based on. Secondly about the limit for an intake is about 2.35 with 2.3 often being more practical. Either way a valve that size is way too small for anything over about 400 inches if serious power is the goal. That said most of us are aware that even a lowly 454 block can be bored and stroked the 525 cubes thus leaving us with a grossly under-valved choice of heads if we are to stick with a more-or-less stock intake manifold and header bolt pattern. If a tall deck aftermarket block is in the budget then, even with the stock bore centers, about 712 inches is possible. Even a lowly low buck 496 deserves heads that can flow more than even a good off-the-shelf CNC ported 24-degree head will deliver.
Just as I was finishing up my last BB Chevy book ‘Slick Rick’ from down Texas way brought out his SR 20 heads on a casting he worked out with Brodix. I tried getting a sample head from Brodix but no joy although I have to say that Rick was all for having me test his work. Bottom line – other than exotics I have no big flow heads that will take regular intakes and exhausts in my book but things for an update down the road a ways are looking really good after this 2019 PRI.
Here is a rough summery of what I am about to delve into here.
• A CNC SR 20 casting ported by a local and well-respected ProStock/Cup Car head shop.
• An AFR 18 degree casting by AFR that looks like it was done to compete directly with the SR20. Looks like this will be a video showing the flow gains achieve by the above-mentioned shop starting from a simple clean up porting job right through to a hi-flow 2.45-inch intake valved CNC race head.
• A revisit of Worlds 16-degree heads
• A baseline 24-degree head from Profiler. There 375 cc runner 2.35 intake head is one of the highest flowing 24-degree heads.
• Also as a baseline my best 24-degree 2.3 inch intake head based on a Dart casting.
• A CNC ported SR 20 casting from Frankenstein Dynamics. Talking to one of their engineers I was assured that their flow bench was well calibrated and if this is the case this head with a 2.42 intake looks like it produces some very good flow numbers.
• Not yet assured but also something from Edelbrock.
I am looking to get started on these tests early in the new year. I will post results here and some brief editorial. To cover these heads in more detail the plan is to do an hour-long video.

BB Chevy stuff was not all that took my fancy at PRI but I will cover that in the next few postings.

Hope everyone had a good Christmas.
DV
David Vizard Small Group Performance Seminars - held about every 2 months. My shop or yours. Contact for seminar deails - davidvizardseminar@gmail.com for details.
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Re: 2019 PRI disasters & New BBC heads

Post by 3V Performance »

Had a great time at your seminar. Thanks for the invite..
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