Standard port vs Max Wedge , or Hybrid Theory....

[73restomod]

So I took my motor to the dyno and made some good numbers for a Street Build 440, but the gears didn't stop turning there. So I'll throw my thoughts out there and get some feedback before I go nuts. My heads are 440 source, the intake is an Eddy RPM with mopar stamped on it, both are hand ported and flowed by me. The ports average (on just the head) 301 CFM at cam lift of .560. I only flowed the #1, #2, and #7 ports on the intake. On Dual planes #1 and #7 tend to be the lowest flowing because of the hard roof transition into the plenum and the tight radius into the port; and are followed by the #4 and #6 which have a 90 degree roof transition into the deeper plenum. Flow numbers for #1 and the #7 were 296, and 303 respectively, with the #2 coming in at 329. I cut down and reshaped the plenum wall from a square from to a half moon, I was very conservative when I re-radiused the plenum and carb pad transitions at the time, but now I have a Dakota instruments ultrasonic gauge with 9" probes for aluminum and cast porting. I also have a mig and tig that can weld aluminum so....

Standard Port: Good for a street motor, but the pushrod pinch further diminishes port cross sectional area, and probably reduces high lift flow.
Size is around 1.26 x 2.26 on average (numbers range depending on source, lol, so don't quote me)

Max-Wedge: Large Cross Section, high lift flow is great, but velocity at low engine speeds takes a beating, unless your running a stroker.
Size is around 1.38 x 2.63 on average ("    ")

Hybrid: Standard port has a higher port floor than Max Wedge - advantage Standard port, Max Wedge has a Higher port roof than Standard port - advantage Max Wedge, Max Wedge port is wider, but requires offset pushrod; however, to open the standard port up to the gasket line you will need an offset rocker anyway - so I give a slight nod to the Max Wedge.
So, I was thinking of a port with the roof height and width of a Max Wedge, and the floor depth of the Standard port. I will make some drawings and Post my Ideas shortly.




The Goal is a head and intake with good drivability and overall flow numbers that land more in race motor territory, and to try this with my current top-end architecture.

[73restomod]

While I'm at I'll justify my thoughts on going this route. Larger ports in conjunction with a Dual Plane intake seem to work well together on "smaller" displacement motors. I want to remove the extra venturi effect in the port being caused by the pushrod constriction; raise the port floor if needed, I want to reduce dead zones in the port. My motor makes peak power at 5900 now, I would like peak power to come in around 6,2-300 rpm. My peak torque occurs somewhere below 4100 rpm (561 ft. lbs.) right now, we couldn't test it any lower because the dyno brake would not hold the motor. I want to make my effective power-band longer, and break the 575 HP mark if I can. I will start working on this hopefully by late September, as long as I have shake-down runs of the drivetrain completed. I will have to get the car blown back apart anyway for paint and body work so....

I will document everything I do here, good or bad, of course with aluminum at least its readily fixable.

I would also like to get some feedback on this, I'm sure some other's here have been down similar paths, and I would love to hear your experiences with it.

[73restomod]

Well its been awhile but I am starting to get around to my winter project....

Decided to start with manifold mods first.



This was the way my intake looked going to its dyno day and for the moment still does. At this point I had only radiused the plenum divider and re-radiused the # 1 and # 7 runners with a flapper wheel as much as I dared. At the time I didn't have a Ultrasonic gauge to check thickness so I was conservative. I decided I would address the dual planes biggest weakness first, plenum volume, specifically the lack thereof.  In my opinion this is the number 1 reason why single planes beat dual planes in outright horsepower. The next reason is the longer runners increase contact area of the  air/fuel mixture against the runner walls so it has more area to "scrap across". However I didn't want to lose the nice bottom end characteristics of the dual plane by just grinding away the plenum divider completely.

So I decided on recycling an old 4 hole spacer, making it into my own tapered 4 hole spacer.



Started off by marking off the gasket with a sharpie, after I had matched gasket to the plenum.



I continued to grind away the excess until I had tapered the holes out.



Than I made a template so I could maintain consistency for opening up the under side to allow for better breathing, and finished out the spacer.





This last pic shows the spacer on the plenum, my plan is to re-contour the intake manifold inlet to mirror, in a sense, the spacer. Look for the updates soon.

[73restomod]

I am thinking I will put off the major resizing of the rest of the ports until I can get the car to a chassis dyno this spring, that and I am still getting the driveline put together, I wish to test it before tearing it all back out for body work and paint. 

[sassygreen]

I,m gonna watch this thread. That is the exact manifold that I went with on my 440 build. You say that is a max wedge manifold?  What kind of power did it make on the dyno? Thanks for your effort.

[73restomod]

Its the Mopar Performance high rise dual plane, a.k.a. Eddy performer RPM. It has the big "wedge" script on it. On the engine dyno I made 537 hp@ 5900 and 561 ft. lbs. @ 4100. I have a sheet and a dyno vid in a different thread here somewhere. I will add the link tomorrow.

['Cuda Hunter]

 :popcorn:Your threads are always great!  I'll be following also. 

[73restomod]

Here is the intake after some more grinding and sanding.



Another shot showing the spacer on top.



Now a pic with the carb up top.



That's it for a little bit as I refocus on other parts of the car, just got all the parts to get it up and running so much work needs doing. 

[73restomod]

Ahh here's the link to my dyno session and charts.

http://www.cuda-challenger.com/cc/index.php?topic=98093.0

[moper]

I'll be watching along with the others. I think the main problem is the mode of testing the intake - meaning measuring low speed airflow through it, is not really going to indicate much other than the transion work between the carb base and port entry (intake's port - not head's port). The real "work" inside a dual plane is the wave tuning, which we don't have equipment to duplicate or measure. So I think in terms of that relationship you need to be dyno testing over and over to see progress or diminishing result.
As far as my experience goes - I do not feel the MW port size works well for most "combination" applications: meaning a combo (the entire car) that's not optimized for racing of some sort. Only when you can limit the power band to a certain window, as in drag racing, or to some extent road racing, or pulling can you really focus in on the intake tract and target certain waves to enchance cylinder filling within that narrow window. This can be calculated based predominantly on a mach number and port volume. The problem becomes fitting the resulting design into the package of existing manifolding. That's one of the reasons for custom sheet metal intakes on many ultra-scienced engines. Additionally, certain intake shapes can improve difficiencies of the portion if the port made up by the cylinder head. Others will work with it well, but not cover any deficiencies.
Boiled down it's my opinion that the wider the required power band, the overall smaller the port needs to be in relation to the displacement. Like with cams, carbs, and head ports - the larger a port the more power it will make, but at a specific (usually higher) rpm.

[73restomod]

That's why I have settled on a non max wedge size, and a non standard port size window. Max-wedge size has it's negatives and positives, so does the standard port. I want something in the middle. I will use a velocity probe on the flow bench test the standard window first and record the reading. I would also like to get a RWHP number to back this data up. I would like to go wider, but only to the point of not having to externally weld material on the intake, keep it stealthy if you will; overall port height will also be dictated by the available material that can be ground out, whilst leaving a reasonable wall thickness all the way around, say .1 to .09 of an inch; and using the largest radii possible throughout. I will not be lowering the port floor so this area will be mostly ignored, with the exception of filling in low spots with weld material to straighten it up to the short side radius. I will also carry the increased size as far into the intake manifold as possible while tapering it size down slightly. This should increase speed out of the plenum and into the port while the increasing size as it enters the bowl area will reduce the speed slightly; because you can be too fast especially over the short side radius.

In other words I would like to try for a perfect/ideal venturi effect starting at the plenum continuing all the way to the valve bowl. The reason I feel the original max wedge design was a flop has to do with an overly restrictive bowl area. It's a weakened signal force trying to move through an ineffective port area, and than having to exert that force over a much larger area, diminishing port speed drastically. If you look at the standard port window, because of the pushrod restriction, only about 90% of the area (at best) is actually put to good use. Look at the size of the 5.7 hemi port window versus  it's displacement (which despite their size have excellent velocity characteristics), versus the 440's "actual port window" compared to it's displacement. Ultimately, overall flow is dictated by the actual smallest cross-sectional area of the port...sooner or later you just can't fit more thru it. My goal is to sneak up on that number without overdoing it.

[Chryco Psycho]

I was just reading in the Ramchargers book that they went to the max wedge port size expecting big gains but the reality was very minimal which I assume is why Mopar never really continued with the Max port heads , if I get a minute & will try to reread the section , & see what the gains really amounted too .

[brads70]

When I ported my Mopar stage 6 heads I went an additional 1/8" taller than stock ( I had to modify the gasket) but kept the same width.  My buddy has a flow bench but I never bothered to flow my heads. My buddy just did a bunch of R&D  on a newer chevy LS aluminum head and gain a bunch just raising the port. So I basically did the same. Mind you the stage 6 heads are a raised port head to start with. The limiting factor was the intake without welding it up.



intake...

[Chryco Psycho]

According to the Ramchargers book they expected 30 Hp gain with max wedge ports , but barely gained over lightly ported production castings so maybe 10-15 hp , but they conceded that the floor shape near the valve seat was partially responsible .

[73restomod]

Yeap, machined edges, poor form, and ski jump ramps on the port floor kill flow... a lot. Just by removing the machined edges in the bowl on my stealth heads picked up almost 9% at peak numbers, lower lift numbers were less altered by the mod; which goes to show that any flow disturbances in the port have a drastic effect on flow especially at higher port speeds.  If you look at the original port design in the max wedges the only thing changed was the port opening.  It still had the huge valve guide boss, poor short side radius, machined edges, and the bowl's cross-sectional area by comparison was abysmal. Which forces the air and fuel to try and speed up right behind the valve, than slow down abruptly at the valve seat to squeeze thru the valve opening; which at low valve lifts causes flow stalling turbulence and poor low speed engine performance. At high engine and port speeds the bowl's small area causes a bottleneck yet again eventually limiting high lift flow as well. This was why the extra large, un-intruded port opening did very little for port performance. This is why the old MP templates worked so well to improve performance, the largest gains had always been in undoing the bowl's and short-side radius' wrongs on BB Mopars. Even after fully bowl porting factory heads they still don't move enough air to thoroughly stress the pushrod pinch though.  That's why I want to compile some data at which point does the pushrod constriction comes into play in hurting flow on a modern head with an excellent bowl shape and a large cross-sectional bowl area. I also want to see how it effects the rest of the intake track.