Thanks for telling us the verdict. Ed should take care of you , he's a good dood.

 

Tar And Feather

 

I agree...

 

Xtra heavy on da tar....and don't forget to wet the sponge....

@?%$#@!@#$%&?

 

I have to admit I am pretty surprised at the differences between the stock casting passages and the ETP casting passages. There's basically just pin holes around the combustion chambers whereas the stock castings have much larger openings. I guess it still flows fine though as long as the holes are in the exact spot they are supposed to be in.

Here's a Patriot head on the left and the ETP head on the right:


Now when we lay the head gasket on the ETP head, the top pin hole is completely covered, the second pin hole is 50% covered and the right pin hole is partially covered. The rest of the pin holes are either fine or only partially covered.


The other head has only one completely covered. The rest are ok but some are partially covered.

 

Looks like my original guess was correct. Looks like the R&D department really f'd up the design.

I would dump those heads, go with a set of massaged AFR Heads and never look back.

 

WOW!!!! I just read this whole thread for the first time. That's tough to believe but I guess mistakes happen. I'm glad you found the problem it just sucks you went through all that trouble. I guess the lesson for all of us is that even as things are "supposed" to fit together properly always check your gaskets against both surfaces before assembly to look for problems like this.
Good luck getting everything back up and running correctly. Keep us up to date.

 

So, how would you have the only problem then if every head is like that? How are others not over heating, but yet you are? At least it looks like you found the problem....hopefully.

 

The design of the heads is not in question because obviously thousands of other customers have no issues. What is in question is the way MY heads were made. It's as if the holes were slightly off from where they should have been. No one is saying a whole batch of heads were made like this, apparently just mine. I'm not sure how that happens but it appears it did in my case.

 

Or better yet Trick Flow 225 small bore heads. The only problem is I built my new motor around these ETP 225 heads. The pistons have valve reliefs for an 11* head with 2.08 and 1.57 valves. I don't know if the 13.5* Trick Flow design would still work with my pistons. The valves are smaller on the Trick Flow 225's so maybe they would work.

 

If you can tell me what the Intake valve drop on your ET heads are I can tell you if they will clear or not!

 

I don't know the intake valve drop. Maybe Leo at Weber does? He is supposed to call Wiseco tomorrow morning and get their input.

Here are some facts on my motor and heads.
Piston is -8.8cc dish
Piston comes 0.014 out of the hole
Gasket is GM MLS 0.054 thick

Heads are 225 cc small bore milled to 58cc
Intake valve is 2.08 diameter and exhaust valve is 1.57 diameter

This is all I know.

I designed the motor around these heads. The Wiseco pistons were custom built for these heads and valve sizes. The motor was built to a SCR of 11.5 and DCR of 8.7. So if I'm going to switch to Trick Flows I need them to be 58 cc if I want to keep the same SCR and DCR, which I do. I also prefer to stay with the Patriot Gold Extreme springs. The heads originally came with PSI solid roller springs and collapsed my Morel lifters. Craig at ETP was at least diligent enough to replace the springs with the Gold Extremes.

 

One thing I don't like about what I saw last night is how dark the valves are on my heads. No one has said anything about it in this thread but I did get a PM voicing the same concern. I kind of have a hard time believing a couple blocked pin holes could cause my engine to overheat so badly. I am not 100% convinced the problem is in the heads. I just find it odd that boiling out my radiator brought temps down from 250 to 220 and then a week later the temps were out of control again climbing to 235+.

Can I get some other opinions here? I don't know where else to go and I obviously don't have the knowledge to figure this out myself.

 

that sucks dude. I read everything and my guess was defenitly the heads. you said you didn't have the problem until you swapped the heads. Good luck man

 

Is there any way to machine the holes out so you can use those heads?

 

FYI the AFR's are better than the trick flows.

 

I had pistons made for et's also but my AFR's never had an issue. i changed to afr's after the first round of et issues. 8cc relief should be decent holes but measuring never hurts.

 

I need some opinions here from some engine builders if any are reading this. I sent some pictures of my pistons and clyinder walls to another member of this site and he had some pretty interesting opinions to say the least. No need for me to give out his name but I would like to post his comments to get some other opinions. I do not know him at all and he is obviously just trying to help but I can't simply take his opinion as fact. What he is suggesting is pretty drastic. I have already been through more than enough this year and doing as he suggests would only double my frustrations.

Here are the pictures I sent to him:
(After we pulled the heads some coolant got on the pistons so obviously the cylinder walls had some coolant on them too. I took photos of the pistons while they were still dirty and then again after I wiped them clean with a shop towel.)

Here are the dirty photos:






Here are the clean photos:






Here is what the member had to say:
So if what he is saying is true, Weber doesn't know what they are doing, Ed Curtis doesn't know what he is doing, my tuner doesn't know what he is doing, Mezziere makes a shitty water pump, the GM MLS head gaskets are wrong and my motor already needs to be rebuilt even though it has not one single time seen full throttle or any RPM above 4000. Basically all I have done with this motor is drive my car to and from the shop a couple times and drove through my neighborhood a few times. Air/Fuel according to my LC1 wideband was slightly rich at 13.4:1 on average. My tuner and I never even got to tune it much at all because my engine kept overheating. So we were waiting for me to figure out this overheating problem before we even attempted to tune.

So as you can see, I certainly need some other opinions before I even think about taking the steps this guy is suggesting. I am not saying this guy is wrong or right, I just need some other opinions when such drastic recommendations are made.

 

13.4 is not anywhere near rich enough to wash cylinders.

 

Can you see anything from the pictures that would indicate anything bad?