Anybody heard of these guys?


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Sorry for the size of this link.

 

Yeah, it's too bad they don't make a head for the 300...

 

Thats what Ive been searching for,thought this would be the guys.

 

There's a thread over at fordsix.com that is dealing with this fantasy. It looks like they MIGHT have a head in a year or so if everything goes right. I'm not holding my breath.

 

Classic Inlines is supposed to be making it, but they're a small-six oriented shop. The big six is kind of a side project for them. They apparently came out with a prototype head, then had casting quality-control problems. They're supposed to start sending out the new prototypes soon. I think a year will be a bit of high hopes. I had held off on my build for a while, I just don't see it happening anytime soon.

They claim they're going to be sending out about a dozen prototypes for testing to real world users and a few porters to make modifications. I still keep an eye on fordsix.com for updates, but I'm not keeping my hopes up too high.

Still, a crossflow inline head would be awesome.

 

The real problem comes from Mike being so small a business. ClassicInlines is not his full time job and doesn't have the working capital that a larger supplier does. Just has to make do with what he has to work with. R&D is expensive.

 

I have never read of anyone actually having insider knowledge for that head production. At this point no one knows, except the owner, whether that head is a rumor or an active project.

I have never heard it said to be an X-flow.

 

According to the owner of ClassicInlines, the patterns are at the foundry to be modified for their casting equipment. First test units should cast soon, then to go to machine shop for machining. After that, they go to the head shop for flow bench testing to see if they live up to expectation and to see if any minor tweaks need to be made to the patterns. Then some test samples will be sent out to various big six racers and testers who will run them for several months and report any issues.

I have never seen it written in black and white that the new head is a cross flow. However, I would be shocked beyond belief if ClassicInlines was going to all of this trouble to build a U-turn head. I think the cross-flow part is understood as a "given".

 

I have never seen it written in black and white that the new head is a cross flow. However, I would be shocked beyond belief if ClassicInlines was going to all of this trouble to build a U-turn head. I think the cross-flow part is understood as a "given".[/quote]
Why would you be shocked? Unless I am badly mistaken, the CI aluminum head they produce for the sb inlines is a u turn head. It just flows better. An X-flow would require a custom intake as well, and p.rods through the intake ports, like the boss 302 head. Not that that is a bad thing.

One of the members who responded to this thread has their head on his bronco. Hopefully he will chime in here.

 

A crossflow design would be nice, but I can see it being really detrimental to sales.

You'd have to move the intake and carburetor to the opposite side, deal with the distributor getting in the way, spark plug holes being moved, possibly different length wires, new carb linkages, etc. etc.
If you kept the intake on the passenger side, and moved the exhaust over, you'd still be dealing with the exhaust manifolds and distributor, repiping exhaust, etc.

Obviously doable stuff, but the hassle of setting it up would really be a deal breaker for a lot of people, and hurt sales.

 

F-250 is correct. The small block head they produce has bigger valves (184/150), seperate intake, and much better flow.(the limiting factor of the integrated head/intake). The intake comes bossed for fuel injection and capable of accepting 2V and 4V carbs easily without modifications. While some of this is not a big deal for the 300 guy's, a great improvement for the small block guy's. Now what gains the big six head planned will offer, I haven't a clue.

 

Why would you be shocked? Unless I am badly mistaken, the CI aluminum head they produce for the sb inlines is a u turn head. It just flows better. An X-flow would require a custom intake as well, and p.rods through the intake ports, like the boss 302 head. Not that that is a bad thing.

One of the members who responded to this thread has their head on his bronco. Hopefully he will chime in here.
[/quote]

One of the limitations of the U-turn head is having room for ports. If you have to cram 12 ports in one side of the head, you are limited in how wide you can make the ports. The cross-flow design allows a little more space for runners. You still have to fit runners between the pushrods, of course, but you still end up with more available width for ports. You could make the intake ports tall and skinny, like the Chevy LSx heads, and get better flow without making the ports wider.

The down side to the cross-flow design is that, assuming the valve are canted to one side, you get a favorable port angle/direction on one side, and an unfavorable angle/direction on the other side. In other words, if the valves are tilted to the passenger side, then the ports coming in from the driver side have to make more than a 90 degree turn. So there are trade-offs in both designs.

If you look at pictures of the Ford experimental cross-flow heads, you will see that they moved the spark plugs to the passenger side and angled them. It is hard to tell in the pictures, but it also looks like they made the valve stems vertical to eliminate the favoring of flow to one side.

There are trade-offs to everything. It will be interesting to see what CI comes up with. Cross-flow or U-turn, I am sure it will be a big improvement over stock.

 

I could see a crossflow head for a street rod, but it would be a PITA on a truck. Unless they moved the spark plugs to the top of the head at the center of a hemispherical combustion chamber.

A big flowing head doesn't do much for low end power. How many truck guys would be willing to give up 10-20% or more down low for 60 more hp at 5,500rpm?

Everyone of us with enough scratch to buy that aluminum head, that's how many.

I hope it is a u-turn head. I hope it has 60cc chambers. And I hope the ports aren't huge sewer pipes.

 

Baron, I'm with you on this. If the new head comes out of the box with flow numbers that make it a nice improvement over stock for a street engine (with thick walls to allow for porting for the racers) I will be thrilled. If, on the other hand, it comes out of the box "race ready", then it will be a big disappointment for me. I don't really care if it is cross-flow or U-turn. I don't even care if it uses stock manifolds or requires custom headers and hand-made intake, just as long as it is NOT a 3000 - 7000 RPM head out of the box.

 

For me the bottom line would be price. Factor in the improvements you get for cost, and that would be the deciding factor.

I mean, how much are they going to sell for? 2,000? If you take a stock head and put $1,000 into it, you have a really nice performing head with larger valves and good flow. He would have to start at close to max. flow potential of the oem head to attract buyers.