I was wondering if there was any way to weld the cross-over ports in my head shut, preferably at the exhaust runner itself. I've welded up EGR stuff in the exhaust ports on alluminum heads before, but never welded to a cast iron head, and was just wondering if was was really even possible???

Also I would like to weld up any little hole, or fill a bunch of places on my C1AE heads, they have alot of sharp edges that could be filled in, because they serve no purpose.

 

Would you settle for tapping it and putting in a tapered pipe plug?
Grind off flush.

What do you think?

Alvin in AZ

 

it's a big tall port, like 3/4" wide, and like 2" tall.....if I could find a pipe plug that would fit that it would be a miricle!..lol....it would work on a small block ford head though most likely.....but not mine.

 

Heck I was thinking of the egr port. :)

Alvin in AZ

 

well it's an EGR and exhaust crossover all in one.....they both come from the same place on the heads....and serve as 2 things, but I don';t run EGR, and I don't want to run the crossover, so I would like to close that hole right in the exhaust port, so that port is like all the other ports, I was just wondering if you can weld Cast Iron or not, I can weld real well, and I've welded up Alum. heads before, but one thing I've never welded is cast iron, so i was just wondering if it was possible, and how to do it so it doesn't crack, or fall out.

 

Lots of intake gasket sets come with metal plates to fit over the crossover opening in the gaskets to block it off. Cheaper and easier than trying to weld cast iron (well, braze it maybe as you can't really weld cast iron).

 

well I've heard of stick welding on cast iron, I mean I could figure out a way of blocking that off myself, w/o buying the fansy gasket...the whole point is to make the exhaust port the same on all cylinders, and I had fun welding up some other things like that before, but they were on aluminum heads. I'm pretty sure if you heat up the heads slowly, then weld, and cool them down kinda slowly, it works, just wondering what kind of rods to use, and such, and if you've never done this before, or don't know anything about it, don't respond. thanks

 

I've welded cast iron before and it's not for the faint of heart. You must heat it up first and I'm sorry but I cannot remember the rods required, but they are specific. I was welding up cracks on some marine exhaust manifolds and was fairly successful, but I doubt you would be with as much filler as you need to weld up those ports. The main robelm is the amount of stress added to the part. As it cools down, in a controlled fashion, it makes all kinds of noise and that's when the trouble starts. Honestly though, If you are thinking that you will see a major performance improvement by making all the ports the same, you should probably be running aluminum aftermarket heads, otherwise I fear you'll just ruin what you have by trying to make them better. I doubt you'll see any improvement by doing this.

 

You can rod weld cast iron with high nickel content rods, but you have to preheat and control the cool down.

MIG welding cast is pretty straight forward, but again you have to preheat and control the cool down. You really would be better off with block off gaskets or find something to just shove up in the ports to keep the exhaust from crossing over.

Justin

 

Since you're getting a new intake anyway (according to your other thread), just make sure you get an aftermarket intake without the crossover built in.

My Edel Performer 390 didn't have one ...

Guys, I wonder if anyone's ever checked the flow rates for that one exhaust port with the crossover in it, compared to the rest?

 

Well I know I won't get much of a gain by doing this, I just like to play around with things....doing things the way everyone else does is boring, I like to try new things....or different things...I'm not afraid of ruining a set of heads.....they're easy to find, for like $20.....So I say Why not!....And if I did weld it up like that, the heads would be pretty trick too I think, and the intake and gasket would no long matter. I would not fill it all w/ the rod, I would stick something in there, and weld up the rest....The hole I'm talking about is way to big to weld shut w/ all welding rods!......it would take like 4 rods!...maybe more!...lol

 

If there is not heat riser valve at the end of one on the exhaust manifolds (usually the right one) I would bet the flow is minimal at best. I always drilled out the shaft and removed the butterfly in the valve if stock exhaust was still in place. When replacing the exhaust (manifolds back) just eliminated it altogether. Header deletes it to. So the block off plates have little flow to stop. Cheaper and easier than screwing around with welding.

 

well the thing is I never plan to run stock manifolds...they're all juk....and I like welding and do diffrent stuff, that sometimes isn't easy. It's fun, and I have acess to just about anything I could ever need, I just don't have much experience w/ it all as being only 20....and only been working w/ motors and building them since I was like 17.....and I've got no one to tell me how to do anything, so I jsut kinda try things...if they work, they work, if they don't I try something else.....I am trying to get into the engine machinist scene...I've done a good bit of machining before, but never on motors...and that's what I really want to do.

I've only seen one person try to weld cast iron, and the weld wouldn't stick cuz I guess it was black iron, or something like that he said...they were some old chevy stock exh. manifolds...so I know all about the heating and cooling stuff, just not sure about what rods to use.

 

Cool. :) But do yourself a favor and read stuff from the library.

Check out a couple welding books and they'll tell you what rod to use and you'll need to preheat cast iron and maybe even post heat it too?

Heck I don't know I'm not a welder but if I were going to try something like you're talking about I wouldn't ask about it on the internet until after I did my homework and read about it. Then if I still had questions like... had read conflicting suggestions I'd go to a welding newsgroup.

I'm not trying to run you down. I'm trying to help you because I can tell, you are worth helping and I'm not kidding about that. :)

I'm old enough and worked and lived in situations where (maybe) I ran across more illiterates than most people. They are good people but lacking information that they could have easily got by half-way reading a book is soooo obvious it ain't funny. They only know what they've figured out themselves (one person's worth) and what certain people have -told- them. Since they hardly believe what they are hearing if it's something "new" learning new stuff is a problem.

You've given me the same impression. :/

You can fix that so easy. :) And you are going to have a lot of fun doing it too. :) Research cast iron welding and more than just answer your own questions. :)

"cast iron rod" or "Ni (nye) rod" is needed.

Even this dumb non-welder knowed that! :/
I read it in a book like 20 years ago. ;)

You are going to kick butt when you get into researching information. :)

Go to the library because the internet's information is -almost- all very shallow information.

I read "Metallurgy Theory and Practice" by Dell K.Allen and learned a thousand man-years of steel metallurgy ...in about a month!

Beat that. ;)

On the metallurgy newsgroup a real metallurgist argued "10 thousand man-years is more like it"

Alvin in AZ (figured out how to make firecrackers and bottle rockets while in the 9th grade researching encyclopedias and chemistry books and anything else I could get my hands on, taught myself stoichiometry in the process even tho I didn't know that word 'til later... you can teach yourself stuff too, prob'ly even better than me:)

 

my 2bbl intake someone used what seemed to be JB Weld to do this to it. I think they just shoved something in and filled up the hole, (not to the surface) just closed it up.