PTS Flowbench Forum

Grant, yes that is the box. I think you would only have to log in at the other site then try the link or any other link. I only don't know if new members here can use their screen name over at the old site.

Grant yes i was thinking of a simple solid pipe that would allow you to rest teh block on the the bench top, so as not to confuse this more is this a 4 or V8?

Rick

The only Flathead V8 test rigs that I've seen have been made from a junk block that was cut apart so that the cylinder and ports could be placed vertically on the bench. This always seemed like a lot of extra work to me. The Smokey Yunick approach won't work well because while sealing up the engine would be easy with an 8BA style Flathead getting some sort of setup that will allow you to manipulate the valves won't be quite so easy.

With that said I would bet that the Flathead ports will flow so poorly relative to your calibration plate that the flow losses induced by the long hose will be negligible and self canceling.

A couple of years ago I did some flathead engine(single cylinder go kart) flow bench work for a customer and it was VERY interesting. We made some really good gains in airflow and horsepower and the engine ran really well. The rules required a stock intake and carburetor and we found that the flow in the block, head and transfer area was so bad that even after a lot of development the stock intake and carburetor didn't cause any great reduction in flow.

This setup worked very well for me. While there will be flow losses with this setup, I was concerned only with incremental changes from the baseline with any mods performed. As long as the test is performed with the same methodology and apparatus, then the results (gains and losses )will be valid.

The biggest gains were found at the head transfer section of the combustion chamber, and with the valve/seat angles. Scalloped guides helped a little. This engine did not recieve a traditional block relief between valves and bore , but responded well with adequate shaping of the transfer area of the head.

I think that relieving the block is the wrong way to go on a Flat head engine and it's much better to leave that area of the block intact and open up the head's transfer area instead. With an aftermarket high compression head as used in the past relieving the block probably did help breathing just because the head was more restrictive than stock. The shape of the valve and seat angles could be critical to flow too.