Ohv

[Tod]

How small is the OHV market? From what I've heard, the pricing of OHV heads seems way out of line. Is that keeping the demand down or is it something else?

Tod

[Mike V. Florida]

Post this on HAMB as well, if you have not already done so. There are far more members that would be interested there then here.

[CWPASADENA]

More people seem to be putting together a good engine for touring. An OHV conversion is one consideration when building an engine. With a GOOD block and lower end, I would think there would be good interest in a good OHV head assembly. I would be interested.

I especially would like to see a cast iron head as I think there is better reliability when using an iron head on a iron block than an aluminum head on an iron block.

My opinion,

Chris W.

[Charlie Stephens]

Tod,

I assume that you have seen the aluminum Miller from Ventura, the two Charlie Yapp heads and I think Dan Price is making one.

Charlie Stephens

[hardtimes]

Originally Posted by Charlie Stephens

Tod,

I assume that you have seen the aluminum Miller from Ventura, the two Charlie Yapp heads and I think Dan Price is making one.

Charlie Stephens

Hey Charlie,
All true, but as Chris stated above, CAST IRON is the metal of choice for longevity, power making and working well with cast iron block !
With that is mind, NONE of these people mentioned , make a cast iron OHV Head.
Tod, count me in as a buyer of cast iron on a cast iron block that you're working. Or count me in for an alum head for an alum block. Of course, we are hoping that any future OHV heads from you....will not cost many thousands $ , like the aluminum OHV Heads now available

BTW...Yapp is no longer making one (the 2 port Riley) of the two heads that he made. IMO, killed the golden goose with the cost going higher every year.

[Dodge]

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I think it's a pretty limited market. Charlie Yapp sold 735 of the Riley two port heads. And I don't know how many of the Roof head. The Riley was faithful reproduction the Roof a loose interpetation, it hasn't been as big a seller. The prices have almost doubled during the
Different production runs. Could be part of the slow down plus the economy slump didn't help.
I think if you where to do one a faithful reproduction of the Riley Four-Port would be my choice.
Also there is not a lot of power difference between an Overhead and a Good flathead on the street. But an overhead sure has the looks.
My 2 cents.

[Tod]

If I were to make an OHV head as a compliment to my new blocks I would offer a block configuration that is special to the OHV head. The block ports would be eliminated and water/coolant space would take their place.

Heads can be made in either iron or aluminum.

Tod

[DougVieyra]

Having had both a Miller-Schofield and a Cragar (pretty much the same thing) and all the attendant paraphernalia that goes with that kind of head/engine, I would assess that the whole thing is way too much of a hassle to deal with - unless your are a real 'gear head', who really enjoys working on your power plant.
As has been said earlier , a well-built "Touring Engine" will be fully adequate for today's driving WITHOUT all the extra maintenance that a 'speed' set up requires.
I am sure that there may be some 'gear heads' out there will shout down such advice - but having been there and then some - I stand by my statement. The market it SMALL for such era exotica. It is strictly a 'niche' market, and way more than is needed for an excellent Model A power chain.

[Tod]

Originally Posted by DougVieyra

Having had both a Miller-Schofield and a Cragar (pretty much the same thing) and all the attendant paraphernalia that goes with that kind of head/engine, I would assess that the whole thing is way too much of a hassle to deal with - unless your are a real 'gear head', who really enjoys working on your power plant.
As has been said earlier , a well-built "Touring Engine" will be fully adequate for today's driving WITHOUT all the extra maintenance that a 'speed' set up requires.
I am sure that there may be some 'gear heads' out there will shout down such advice - but having been there and then some - I stand my my statement. The market it SMALL for such era exotica. It is strictly a 'niche' market, and way more than is needed for an excellent Model A power chain.

I have heard that basic sentiment about the 'gear head' types being the only ones with interest. I can understand that there would be fewer people inclined to want to get all mechanical and would rather just drive their cars.

As far as pricing goes, I just don't see where the head should cost 4500-5500 dollars.

Tod

[Juggler]

There are 4 ohv heads on the market that I'm aware of, the Roof from Charlie Yapp, the Cragar Millers from Steve Serr and Dan Price and the Gem Power from Belcher Engineering in the UK. Did I read or hear that Mr Serr was considering bringing back the Cook head? Seems there is a market after all.

How about resurrecting the Riley 4 Port? By common consensus the best of the period offerings. I'd buy one.

If you really want a usp, how about an ohc or even dohc head like the HAL?

Form an orderly queue, behind me.

Cheers

Juggs

[1931 flamingo]

I can remember seeing OHV's on A's in the late 50's. Must have been many, many of them out there. Wonder what happened to them??

Tod: $4500-5500 is a lot of money and there are so many SBC's for little money.
Please keep us all updated.
Paul in CT

[waxhead]

I am behind Juggs if the price is not US $4.5K +, especially given the Australian dollar exchange rate. The price is the limiting factor for me. Throw in shipping, exchange rate and import duty, and I can buy a pretty good car in Australia for the going price of the current overheads on the market. My vote is for the Riley 4 port aswell.

[JohnLaVoy]

While I have a Miller, but not on a car yet, and have friends with the various other brands mentioned there does seem to be a market for them. Yes, they are expensive but it does take some work to get them made. Around here there are a number of conversion when they take a head off of some other car and fit it to the Model A to get the overhead so people are interested. Of course they came out with the overheads when the Model A was new so there has been an interest for a long time. I have a few people that have run the overheads on cars on my long tours and they did not have any problems with them so they seem to work for any kind of touring.

[Tod]

Originally Posted by waxhead

I am behind Juggs if the price is not US $4.5K +, especially given the Australian dollar exchange rate. The price is the limiting factor for me. Throw in shipping, exchange rate and import duty, and I can buy a pretty good car in Australia for the going price of the current overheads on the market. My vote is for the Riley 4 port aswell.

PM sent like you asked over on the HAM.

Tod

[Brendan]

Originally Posted by Mike V. Florida

Post this on HAMB as well, if you have not already done so. There are far more members that would be interested there then here.

looks like he got some intrest

[40 Deluxe]

The basic head casting and machining is the easy part. Now, what will we use for valves, rockers, rocker cover, pushrods, gaskets, etc? '32 Buick (or whatever was used) rocker arms are no longer in every salvage yard. It should be easy to modify a casting to use currently available parts.
So maybe either offer the head as a complete kit or with a parts list for the builder to gather his own parts.

[Tod]

Originally Posted by 40 Deluxe

The basic head casting and machining is the easy part. Now, what will we use for valves, rockers, rocker cover, pushrods, gaskets, etc? '32 Buick (or whatever was used) rocker arms are no longer in every salvage yard. It should be easy to modify a casting to use currently available parts.
So maybe either offer the head as a complete kit or with a parts list for the builder to gather his own parts.

Exactly right. This is all being looked into right now. Obviously, if I need to make rocker assemblies, that can be done.

Tod

[Jim Brierley]

Tod, I believe the market is quite small, partially because of price, partially due to the other heads already on the market have somewhat saturated the market. While most would probably prefer iron, aluminum isn't that hard to maintain. Serr has sold quite a few heads (far less than 735), and is working on a Cook copy that will be much improved over the original (I have an original iron Cook, much modified). Yapp sold 735 of his Riley's??? Highly doubtful in my mind. I see lots of the Serr-Miller heads but very few Yapp-Riley's. Serr has new roller- rockers made, other parts, like valves, are not hard to find. Modern rockers are shorter than what the A engine requires. A project like you are talking about would be welcomed in the hobby but I think not very profitable???

[Tod]

Originally Posted by Jim Brierley

Tod, I believe the market is quite small, partially because of price, partially due to the other heads already on the market have somewhat saturated the market. While most would probably prefer iron, aluminum isn't that hard to maintain. Serr has sold quite a few heads (far less than 735), and is working on a Cook copy that will be much improved over the original (I have an original iron Cook, much modified). Yapp sold 735 of his Riley's??? Highly doubtful in my mind. I see lots of the Serr-Miller heads but very few Yapp-Riley's. Serr has new roller- rockers made, other parts, like valves, are not hard to find. Modern rockers are shorter than what the A engine requires. A project like you are talking about would be welcomed in the hobby but I think not very profitable???

Given that I do all my own tooling work for the cost of material alone, almost all of the pricing comes back to me, except for the casting cost. Since I do modeling and tooling work while I am running normal production, the cost of getting to the foundry is almost free. I don't have to recover any investment costs. I don't have any.

Tod

[ronn]

I agree with Dodge-limited market for what the end result will cost.