# Bear Gets Good Head(s)



## BearGFR (Aug 25, 2008)

Anyone who's read my posts probably knows I'm a big fan of Jim Lehart at Central Vrginia Machine. Recently when I had a cracked head and subsequent failed repair on the Beast, I ordered a set of Edelbrock Heads from him with their basic "Sportsman" port work. They are indeed things of beauty. I took a few photos of the port work - hopefully now the reasons for my positive outlook on Jim and Dave at CVMS will become more evident.

Viton seals and hardened steel spring cups, installed height of each valve spring precisely measured. Not that difficult to do, but many builders don't invest the time and effort to do this.









Precise intake port shape. Notice the work around the "back side" of the intake valve guide. This helps to impart swirl to the incoming charge.









Look at how much of the intake valve seat/opening is visible looking through the port. Think these might flow a little air?









Valve bowl/seat area. Notice the extra work around the edge of the chamber to unshroud the intake valve. This is extremely important for flow at low lifts when the valve is barely off its seat.









Closeup of intake seat. See how smoothly the bowl transitions into the seat? Niiice...









Likewise on the exhaust seat. The chamber boundary has been opened up a little here too for un-shrouding purposes.









Continuing the path out through the exhaust port. You can see the areas that have been smoothed and shaped.









The valves. Edelbrock heads out of the box use 2.11 intakes and 1.66 exhausts. These are "bigger than that" 









Bear


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## BearGFR (Aug 25, 2008)

Wow... thought I'd get some comments on this by now. I'm hoping I didn't offend folks with the title, I was just trying to be "clever" 

Bear


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## TK69tempest (Feb 28, 2011)

Bear - I personally got a good laugh out of the title. I didn't respond because we haven't talked that much and I didn't want to offend by "escalating" that play on words :lol:

Those heads are a thing of beauty - kinda make me a little jealous...


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## Joe'sToy (Mar 9, 2012)

^^^X2 on that, I thought it was a fun title, and with all the trouble you have gone through with the previous heads, no-one should take offense. Still, I am very jealous of your engine and the new heads. It's nice when I see how things should be done.


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## the65gto (Oct 9, 2008)

BearGFR said:


> Wow... thought I'd get some comments on this by now. I'm hoping I didn't offend folks with the title, I was just trying to be "clever"
> 
> Bear


I was blown away by the pics.....just now recovering:cool Had to go back to the other thread and read the whole story. Geezzzz So you never mentioned it yet, what was the line to convince Mrs Bear??


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## BearGFR (Aug 25, 2008)

the65gto said:


> I was blown away by the pics.....just now recovering:cool Had to go back to the other thread and read the whole story. Geezzzz So you never mentioned it yet, what was the line to convince Mrs Bear??


Oh... I just had to promise to buy her a "little something"...  

We just put a contact on 13.5 acres of land out in the country plus a house over about 45 minutes west of Fort Worth  it does also include a 30x60 shop on a concrete slab with double garage doors though... arty:

Bear


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## TK69tempest (Feb 28, 2011)

You really need to quit making me jealous - its just not fair...!!! arty:

Party in Bear's new garage/shop - when does it start...?? :cheers


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## Rukee (Feb 8, 2007)

Sweet [email protected]! :cheers


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## Rukee (Feb 8, 2007)

...oh-yeah, the heads are nice too.


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## Eric Animal (Oct 28, 2007)

bear....NICE property and shop. You will love the head s...!!!! :cheers:cheers Eric


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## 68greengoat (Sep 15, 2005)

Ok, ya great. Nice house, nice view. Blah, blah.... After a litttle cleanup in the shop, saweeeet!:cheers


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## BearGFR (Aug 25, 2008)

Update: My new (correct, finally) wheels arrived last week and I just this morning went to the tire shop where my Nitto NT555R's arrived yesterday. Tires are mounted on the new wheels, and it looks like they're going to fit ok (yay!). I set one of the rears on the axle just to have a look at it, and the outside edge of the tire is going to clear the inside of the wheel opening lip --- by 1/4" or less, but it's going to clear. I'm headed back out there now to install the center caps and Alky's cool valve caps onto the new wheels and mount them up. I'll send a couple of photos once they're on.

As soon as my regulator rebuild kit gets here (diaphragm started leaking a little bit, probably because I need to dial the pump output pressure down some), I'll be able to get busy getting the carb dialed in. After that's done, all I need is a helmet and some practice time. Then we'll find out if it's anywhere near as quick as I hope it is :confused. Keeping my fingers crossed here. It's one thing to talk about it, quite another to deliver results.  I'm wishing I'd been able to keep my mouth shut about what I "think" 

Bear


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## Eric Animal (Oct 28, 2007)

Bear, I'm sure it will run like a 'scalded hound".....arty:


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## BearGFR (Aug 25, 2008)

:rofl: Well, I should have expected it, right? I mean, after carefully measuring the rear for exactly the backspace I needed to center the tire, picking a tire accordingly, going though an ordeal to get the right wheels...

I left to go get some fuel and didn't even make it out of the driveway. The rear wheels were rubbing on the brake calipers. Doh! :willy:

I considered grinding on the wheel... nope, besides not really having the right tools to do that with any precision I decided taking metal off them and potentially weakening them would be a bad idea.

I considered grinding on the calipers where they were obviously rubbing - it didn't look like it would need much. Decided that taking a chance on grinding through a caliper or weakening the metal would also be a bad idea.

So I called the ONE speed shop I know about that might be open on Saturday afternoon, went down there, and bought a pair of 7/32" spacers to move the wheels out. I think 1/16" would have been enough but those were the smallest they had. The tires still clear, but the drivers side looks awfully doggone close to the lip and may rub at full suspension compression. There's about 1/8" inboard of the wheel opening trim I can cut away if I'm careful though, so I might just go ahead and do that.

Spacers on, I took it out to get gas and "just see". Whereas before, rolling into the power from about 5-10 mph would blow the tires off it, now it just hooks and goes.  
I think this is going to work just fine. :cheers

Bear


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## jetstang (Nov 5, 2008)

So what will the HP increase be with the new heads? Oh, nice.
:cheers


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## Eric Animal (Oct 28, 2007)

Bear, If you have good rear suspension ( and as I recall, you do) side to side "deflection should not be MUCH of an issue.....I had my fender 'lips' cut on my 67 and just managed to tuck a set of 11" wide meats inside. E :cheers


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## BearGFR (Aug 25, 2008)

jetstang said:


> So what will the HP increase be with the new heads? Oh, nice.
> :cheers


I don't know for sure. I took a "guess" at the flow numbers and ran it through Engine Analyzer, but I kept the port volumes the same (and I know these are bigger) --- the model predicted an additional 30 HP. That's probably in the ballpark.

Bear


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## BearGFR (Aug 25, 2008)

Eric Animal said:


> Bear, If you have good rear suspension ( and as I recall, you do) side to side "deflection should not be MUCH of an issue.....I had my fender 'lips' cut on my 67 and just managed to tuck a set of 11" wide meats inside. E :cheers


I've got enough room on the passenger side where the new quarter panel is but the drivers side is a little tight. It still clears but it's close to 1/16" or less. There's enough 'extra' inside the wheel opening trim along the inside edge of the lip that I can cut probably, oh, 1/8" or so off. I think I'm going to do that here in a little bit - then maybe fiddle with the idle mixture and ignition timing a little (E-heads tend to like more advance) and see where it's at. 

There's a show later today, registration starts at 1:00 pm - I haven't decided for sure but I'm thinking about it. I went to one yesterday from 6pm to 11pm - ew - it was HOT!. (How hot was it? :confused) Well, it was so hot that when I finally left to drive home about 11:15pm, I was a little scared to drive because my vision was blurry from the sweat running into my eyes and getting on my contacts...

It was fun though, I left the dumps open when I parked it. A few times during the show I started it up for folks who wanted to know about the car. It drew a crowd every time  I'm still trying to figure out how to show this thing --- I guess I'm just too "honest" for my own good. The rules said "modified" means 4 modifications or more and this car is definitely in that category, so into "modified muscle" it went. The awards though went to a screaming yellow 67 Chevelle with a cage, tubs, big meats, and a blown little-block with a bug catcher, and a loud 70 Hemi Challenger also with a big blower, dual quads, fat tires, and all the trimmings. The problem with the Beast is that it's exactly what I meant for it to be - stock appearing with all the serious go-fast goodies in places that don't show - so unless someone takes the time to talk to me about it or crawl all around underneath it they think it's "just" a GTO. I could enter it in any of the "original" classes and 95% of the people who look at the car would never know any different.

Bear


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## geeteeohguy (Feb 2, 2008)

Bear, I would of posted by I simply missed the posting! You're going to love the shop, and you'll probably need a '65 GTO project to put in it. If I come up with anything at all, you're the number one guy on my list. Good luck with the move!!!


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