TRIUMPH IRON MODIFIED HEADS:-

THIS IS HOW WE MAKE THE BEST HEADS IN THE WORLD:-


and camshafts

SHORT HISTORY:-


Getting involved in doing the cast iron 2V heads was rather accidental.
To begin with, all the work was contracted out.
This had an advantage giving entirely independent results, but a catastrophic flip side (!)

The whole operation fell over because of a combination of classic British diseases:-

  • Parts being sold by companies who made parts that would damage the engine or not deliver any performance improvement.

  • Theft & the so called "losing"/"non delivery" of parts,mixed with plain good old DISHONESTY.

  • Totally unreasonable waiting times, including loss/claimed loss of instructions/E-mail addresses/phone out of order,fax out of paper,(make up next bullshit excuse here)

  • Very variable quality of work, done by people who had no interest at all in this engine, followed by the usual "we have so much work we don't need yours anyway!

  • Inexplicable delays to get basic work done,- then:-

  • Attempts to data-mine work we did, as well attempts to steal IP.

  • A barrage of two faced excuses, or even worse behaviour of all kinds.

  • Attempts to discredit work at an early stage, by stage-managing slander or deliberate vandalism.

  • The above in tandem with very mediocre work rushed through at the last minute, charged at top rates.
    This is what makes the British, the laughing stock of all of Europe.

    Unfortunately nothing ever seems to change, so we took onboard the very long job of doing the entire operation in house.

    INITIAL RESULTS/METHOD:-

  • The heads we saw, had very variable quality.
  • Valves were available from different vendors, each claiming to be the best.
    We tested every single one, finding they were ALL bad or mediocre, some flowing hardly more than Standard.
  • A number of different people contributed by sending in heads to be tested, some by sending in flow figures & comparative power figures, others by claiming things which were manifestly untrue(!)

    We spent 100s of hours going through each individual result, flow bench testing heads, & analysing what contributed to what. Most of them had "serious issues".
    We tested heads which were so bad they were as good as destroyed(!)

    CLAIMS AND BOOK STUFF:-
  • Of the heads immediately scrapped, 100% failure was from T Linsey Dean or the outfit called KINGSTON SC.
    Here is an example.
    The person who did this, does not possess the skill to modify a head, let alone sell it for money!
    These had been personally reccommended by K Kastner who had written tuning books years ago about these engines.
    This sort of rubbish seems to be supported by a group-think clique of people hawking these books around the world,(particularly with ref to the maximum flow of the original SU inlet manifold/head combo) with quote "chapter and verse"!
    This goes on in exactly the same way as we demonstrated happening on the Jaguar scene with the owner's clubs & AJ6 & V12 engines (!)
    NOT A SINGLE ONE OF THEM IS CREDIBLE, but NOT A WORD of criticism is allowed.

    We just take everything with a pinch of salt, believe what we see, & the rest all as evidence of yet another CARTEL of interests to sell sub standard info/parts(!)

    An old book by Vizard shows no in depth knowledge on how to modify a Triumph head

    A recently released book "The Triumph performance bible" is even worse.
    The pure fantasies shown in this one shows you can sell literally any advice/parts these days for money, especially on EBAY!

    We went to great trouble to verify the claims of the first 2 people, and of course even test a head from K Riley, a respected Mini tuner.

    On the Riley head the inlet valves SIMPLY didn't flow, but it didn't stop (CES), the engine builder claiming 138bhp! This of course was FAKE.
    The flow figures could only support 122bhp!

    Here is what we did to that head, in order to make a bit more than those original fictious 138bhp REALLY possible!
    After this work, the pure maths gives us 35.2Bhp per cylinder or a collosal 19bhp increase 1000rpm higher!
    Cynical?
    NO!
    If a head can't flow the gas, it can't deliver the power. Simple as school maths.. OPEN this page to get a proper idea what is possible and what isn't!
    This is a good guide when you hear of engine producing huge horsepower. THEY ARE FAKE!
    Claims of 120-130bhp from a 1300 engine using 2 small SUs are just FAKE no matter who says so(!)

  • At a very early stage we opted to MANUFACTURE valves based on a solid design we made & tested in the 1980s.
    Here is the inlet valve test against a Toilettune/Moss valve
    Here is the even more suprising exhaust test against a"toilettune"/moss valve

    Funnily enough, all the valves on the market resemble the "toilettune" ones! Then as an extra effort to detune the engine they sell even larger inlet valves (which drop the flow)
    which force the use of smaller exhaust valves which also flow 20% less!
    You don't believe me?
    Well take a look!
    Here is the mediocre little valve we tested, (blue line) sold by everyone to give you more (LESS) power.
    Here it is done properly. Note the "SMALL" change in gas flow?
    It ACTUALLY exceeds the theoretical maximum (green line) for that head by quite a bit!

    FLOW BENCH DEBATES:-
    We don't sell heads by flow bench figures!

  • for this reason at an early stage we had to calibrate a SF300 flow bench VERY carefully.

  • This flow bench is reading PESSIMISTIC.
    Here is a typical experimental IMP head fragment on test
    (slant heads can be tricky to hold on benches sometimes, so laugh at a 6" British G clamp design!)

    We were careful with calibration,as we became aware ,one or two of the best known flow benches around, are reading very optimistic over 0.250" lift.
  • Here is ours measuring a NOS STD Spitfire/Toledo TC head
    (green line is mathematical optimum possible calculated from valve size)
  • Here is a STD head measured by someone else.

    Errors of this size invalidate any conclusions people may come up with.
    Look carefully!
    We measure 91.9cfm completely flat,- from 0.360" on. This head is BRAND NEW with Stanpart valves.

    The other smaller flow bench found 100cfm@0.450" rising to 102! HOW?
    In this case we can only conclude the "race" head figures shown also, can ONLY be 14cfm (11%) high,
    The race head would then give a maximum of 117cfm, (which we know is absolutely normal for commercial flowed heads).

  • Here we reproduce an article from Burgess which shows the same stuff.
    That flow bench is reading EVEN HIGHER at 109.7cfm for the same head configuration!
    Funnily enough in the article shown, even with those problems, Burgess only manages to extract another 5cfm more for all the work!
  • Here is the flow bench test of one of his heads, before (green line) & after (dark blue line) we had fitted our own valves in it.
    The weird wavy red line is the head from T-L Dean as shown above, and the light blue line shows what happens in that head with Stanpart valves.
    It still doesn't outperform the Burgess head, but it's a concours of mediocrity isn't it?

    The best corrected flow at 10" of the blue line is only 77cfm, (which is still better than anyone ever managed before) but still not enough...

  • THIS is more like it should be!


  • Some people have suggested flow benches don't work.

    As you can see, this is largely true in the wrong hands.
    Both heads from Burgess and Mr TLD are claimed to be developed with flow benches!
    'Nuff said" really!
    While some results we have seen using a flow bench have been catastrophically bad, it is like ANY measuring tool. Without the basic skills, engineering/scientific disciplines & hunches to come up with the right conclusions, they make disasters into bigger disasters.
    Eg:-
    Here is someone's idea of a tuned Dolomite 16V head. (green line).
    As you can see everywhere except right at 0.360" lift on, it is VERY INFERIOR to the original unmodified head (red line, which is not so bad really)!

    By contrast the light blue lined head (done here) has FANTASTIC flow, actually better than a COSWORTH XE big valve head!
    I leave you to bet on which gives good power!
    The Dark blue lined head used STANDARD valves and was done in 90 mins flat!

    RESULTS:-

    Here is a BEFORE AND AFTER graph showing very simply the TORQUE gain from fitting one of our heads. The first lower black line 127.9ft/lb is a 2L Pi GT6 with absolutely STANDARD engine.
    The other traces were the result of slight tweaking of the MJ - EDIS programmable advance firmware.
    (Something we can also do).
    Notice, after fitting only the modified head,- more torque everywhere (a 20bhp increase in power) extending to peak power 1000rpm higher (6600rpm) than normally thought possible with this camshaft.
    Nearly 140ft/lb of torque is considered quite a good value for a 40 year old STANDARD 2V 2L engine with only 2V per cylinder.

  • As for the rest, we rejected all opinions of "experts" suggesting we had so far had EXCELLENT results, as being merely MEDIOCRE.

    We decided to introduce more scientific and stepwise approaches than had ever been used before, including applied ACOUSTICS & Aerodynamic ideas such as lift surfaces.
    You may ask WHY do this work on a 40 year old design?
    Simply because some of these old "swirl type" heads can be very tricky to do, and in fact the 1300 triumph head turns out to be a VERY GOOD classic head, when developed properly.
    Just in case you don't believe me, this is the difference before & after modifying one of these heads.
    As you can see, properly modified, these heads flow better, absolutely everywhere, which means they give EXCELLENT torque.
    Please notice that extended torque curve from 2000-nearly 7000 was achieved with a camshaft (TR6) of only 0.360 lift and 2 SU carbs fitted in a 1300!

    STANDARDS OF WORK:-
    These are what we called minimum standards, to us they are equally part & parcel of the job, but are almost always violated by "normal" traders.

  • Customer's rights are to be respected & their property remains theirs. (which means you don't swop out someone's head for another because it happens to suit you/better than another knackered one)
  • If a price has been agreed, a price has been agreed.
  • If a definite date of completion has been agreed it will be done by this date.
  • Nothing will go out until it is completely satisfactory in all respects.
  • Inferior parts will NOT be used EVER!
  • A minimum spec does not mean Stage 1 or Stage 2 or whatever meaningless terms are applied! They are FIT for the job they were ordered for.
  • Modified parts, mean they GENUINELY make an improvement, & it can be demonstrated in front of the customer.
  • A modified head is the MOST important part of a modified engine. It will NOT compromise the life of the engine & it will do what is claimed.
  • A flow bench graph if provided is GENUINELY from this head, not some generic graph made up for fun!

    PREPARATION:-
    We decided to work with mainly NOS (new old stock) parts.

    In the case of using s/h (second hand), a complete clean up, bead & acid bath is used.
    PAINT with proper engine paint.
    This enables us to work on iron heads in the best possible conditions,minimum dirt and deposits.
    (This is by no means a stupid point,doing old iron heads is a VERY dirty job generating a lot of dust & debris).

    WORKING ON THE HEAD:-

  • Enlarge exhaust seats to almost final dimensions as well as inlets. (SUNNEN)
  • Assess CR and remove an initial large skim to get close to the eventual final volume.
  • This skim will now make the head COMPLETELY FLAT, not someone's funny idea of "flat".
  • Now remove/temporarily move guides:-
  • Port the LSR of the ports, the port entries as well as the initial SSR and chamber.
  • Work in chambers in pairs, if siamesed, LH all done together, then RH all done one after the other.
  • Fit guides, check the flow figures as to be within the correct band for this kind of head. (Usually chamber 2 or 3).
  • Bring chambers/head "into tune" by careful head work and work on the Sunnen again.
    (Seats all to be close to exactly the same height, on the valves used for the final assembly.
  • Final careful adjustment with special emphasis on Turbulence issues.

    (This is a very long & painstaking job which no-one else does).Each port & seat is carefully equalised by micro finishing.
    Work back again across the head to get proper quality control to within a refining pattern of tolerances.
    Each chamber & port to be within 1cfm, to be repeated until the head arrives in the correct flow "window".
    On Spitfire heads this is 79-80cfm for road heads at 10.5mm lift. TR6 heads must flow 90-91cfm*. ALL on Standard bore size.
    Reject all heads which do not come up to this spec.
    NB:
    (*This is considered to be the very best figures ever achieved on FULL RACE heads with large bore previously (!). Claims were made of 250Bhp. This is FAKE. This power CANNOT be achieved with this flow figure.)

    ROAD & RACE HEADS what differences?:-

    Early on, we realised there was very little difference,..so these are general rules.

    -WE DON'T SUPPLY STAGE 1 or STAGE 3 heads, we only make heads that WORK!-

    The main principle is, a RACE car head has to do a somewhat lower mileage, so it can have narrower seats which may wear a little faster & have non unleaded seats.

    Occasionally we supply experimental camshafts with higher than normal lift, or to be used with other than STANDARD rocker gear.
    These heads have a performance margin (off the flow chart normal scale) already optimised to take advantage of this.

    We use our own camshaft designs which have a combination of NO MORE THAN ABSOLUTELY NECCESSARY lift, minimal spring rates to do the job, & the ability to use the ideal compression ratio for that engine.

    Road engines usually use valves with STANDARD valve stem sizes & STANDARD sizes.

    Race engines if using higher inlet valve lift, have lighter weight in order to be able to use those higher accelerations.

    There will be NO CASE of coil bind, valve stem seizure, valve spring, collet or valve cap breakage or premature valve guide wear or seizure, or valve seat dropping.

    Oil consumption will be REASONABLE even under high loads.

    Where a head needs to be skimmed to get a given CR, this will NOT be permitted to compromise the core of the head.
    Any head like this, is REJECTED BEFORE release, and the customer is kept fully informed.

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