EX-514 headed 557 Engine Buildup Photo Essay.

A couple of years ago I did this buildup for Mike at Extreme Machine makers of the EX-514 head that's sold through Flow Technologies. The EX head is a variation of the A-460 casting design which was out of production at the time of the buildup.

The whole idea was to build a very basic engine to show what the cylinder heads could do in a real world buildup. The heads were out of the box pieces. The intake was also unported except for portmatching to the heads.

I had done a photo essay of the buildup and it's presented here as a PDF file. This made it much smaller than when it was a word document but it's still large, 7.0MB because there are many color photos showing each aspect of the buildup.

Happy reading.

http://misn.com/~frd460/specialtools.html

Great job Dave,thank's for taking the time to help us not so experienced guy's see how to do it,,,,,,,,Gregg

sorry,,,double post,,,

Very informative.

Outstanding job on the pdf.

I built a 557 last year with the EX514 heads and am very happy with it. I think I will try your grind currently Iam using a smaller cam motion cam that I had in a 514 so I knew it was not the optimum. In a 3250lb merc zephyr it has run a best of 9.44@145 in the 1/4 and it was hot and humid. Still have some bugs to work out.

Curious what size converter is he using in that alterd.

Thanks,

Mike

I would see if you can get in touch with John Desormeu the guy who used the engine in his dragster because he had it running right on the money. You might want to call Birdie at Flow Technologies and see if he has John's number.

Mike from Extreme Machine ordered the cam and I think he really nailed it because we wanted it to peak at or slightly below 7000rpm and that's just what the engine did. The engine was suprisingly tame with that cam, a good carburetor package and a locked out distributor, it was great...

Dave did you experiment much with the timing? 33deg is where you made the best HP?

Mike

I did several pulls where I put in more timing and took out timing and it liked 33 degrees the best. Later on at the track John experimented with the timing a bit too, he tried running more and less and it didn't help so he put it back at 33 degrees. Does that sound low to you?

Dave very interesting 2 questions for you....how long could you go on a prostreet ride with a cam and vavleing like that 10 miles or 1 year as its huge. Secondly if compression dropped to 11 to 1.....?

The engine was used for a whole season of racing(about 75 passes + dyno pulls and test passes in Wes' roadster) without any valvetrain problems. The springs which were the standard issue roller springs that come on the heads, PSI springs I believe were holding up fine with that cam. It was a pretty aggressive grind but the rpm was generally kept below 7200rpm so it seemed to be quite easy on the springs.

I think that dropping the compression would hurt the torque and horsepower numbers quite a bit. Going down from 13.5:1 or whatever to something like 11.5:1 I think would probably knock it down 75 horsepower, I'm not sure exactly.

Thanks for the excellent info. I do have a couple questions about it. 1st why EX514 head? Why didnt you do any porting? not needed or cost? 2nd could you machine a set of pistons for the same build if you didnt have the engine there? Again thanks for the help, Mike

The EX-514 heads were used for several reasons. First of all Mike Barachman from Extreme Machine hired me to build the engine to demonstrate the capabilities of their cylinder heads and intake.

He wanted the engine to be a simple buildup using inexpensive off the shelf parts that's why we used a Scat crank, stock block, Eagle rods etc.

The heads are not ported because he wanted me to use them "out of the box" which I did. I did port match the intake but that was all the porting that was done.

He wanted the engine to make max power at or below 7000rpm too.

At the time of that build there were NO A-460 heads on the market, they were not in production. The EX-514 head is a nice alternative to the A-460 head and it makes high compression very easily on a 557 with a flat top piston.

I think that all in all the engine worked out very good. I could cut a set of pistons like I'm doing in the article but I think it would make more sense and be easier to just buy a set with the A-460 style valve relief. Doing the valve relief for that engine took me a long time..

In the end the Scat 9000 series cast crank was the weak point of the engine. Everything else was holding up great at that power level. In fact they even ran it a bit harder in the dragster because they would sometimes shoot it another 125 horsepower of nitrous for the first part of the run.

I have a time slip that they sent to me it ran a 7.385 at 179.94mph with a 1.07 60ft, a 4.70 at 148 1/8th mile. It says NOS on at .3 sec, off at 5.30sec in that pass. Not bad...

I did several pulls where I put in more timing and took out timing and it liked 33 degrees the best. Later on at the track John experimented with the timing a bit too, he tried running more and less and it didn't help so he put it back at 33 degrees. Does that sound low to you?
33 does sound low to me but maybe its just my cam profile that it does not like it that low. Mine seemed to like 38-39.

Dave what do you think of this combo in a 545 CU. IN. ? I have all the basic same stuff but for 545 cubic inch?

thanks for yor time
Randy

I think it would work excellent but I would check the clearance between the exhaust valve and the bore on a 4.390 bore diameter. I don't think you'll have problems but I would certainly check, notching right at the top of the bore would be easy to do.

Hi Dave I really liked your results.

Iam running a similar combo with 13.25:1 and EX514 Ported Heads with custom Diamonds, A460 block, Crower Billet crank and a Eagel 6.800 rod.

Other than that all of the same components other than the cam grind the current cam is a Cam Motion ground for a 514 its 275/285 .744/.726 on a 109 not the best for this combo but I thought I would just run it anyway for a season.

Just for compairison I filled out a cam request from cam motion with my specifics and here what they cam up with. Just curious what you think compared to your grind.

R2825-2962-12+4

Hot lash .025

286/296 @ .050 .813/.779 on a 112

installed on a 108 int centerline

Thanks ,

Mike

It is interesting but it looks like your cam is very similar with a slightly larger intake lobe but about the same amount of overlap due to it having slightly wider lobe sep. I would think that your cam will give you a bit more rpm than the cam that I used, I'm not sure how much but probably a few hundred more.

Mike Barachman from Extreme Machine provided that cam, I think it's one he's had good results with in the past. I think it worked very good actually. As a matter of fact, the guy who owns the dragster that ran this engine built the exact same combination in an SVO block with a billet crank but when they built that engine they moved the cam up to a 104 intake centerline for some reason and it didn't run as good, so I think that should tell you that the engine probably needs all of the duration this cam has and maybe more. So, it might be that your cam/engine will make more power(most likely) than this build did.

Thanks Dave for the input I think I will give it a try.

Mike

Dave I have a couple cam I am thinking about for this combo

Intake 836 288@.050
Exhaust 830 316@.050
on a 116 C/L

what would this cam do for this combo in a 545?
or I have a

Intake 743 280@.050
exhaust 735 286@.050
on a 110C/L

That first cam has quite a bit more duration than what I used with these heads on a 557 inch engine. It really has much more exhaust timing, I wonder what that cam was designed for, any ideas? With that much more duration it needs the wider lobe sep, what kind of advance does that cam have? I know that the cam I used made peak power right at 7000rpm on the 557, I would think that having that much more timing might give you another 500rpm or so. What I'm wondering is if it might make the engine more manageable with some types of drag chassis.

The 2nd cam is much more similar to the one I used and I think it would work good for a 6500rpm 545. I believe it's closer to the cam Wes has in his A-460 headed 557.

A good guy to ask about this would be Charlie Evans he's had a lot of "A" head experience and I think that any cam that works good with a A head would work good with the EX-514 as well.

[quote="DaveMcLain"]I would see if you can get in touch with John Desormeu the guy who used the engine in his dragster because he had it running right on the money. You might want to call Birdie at Flow Technologies and see if he has John's number.

Mike from Extreme Machine ordered the cam and I think he really nailed it because we wanted it to peak at or slightly below 7000rpm and that's just what the engine did. The engine was suprisingly tame with that cam, a good carburetor package and a locked out distributor, it was great...[/


HERE IS MY EMAIL TO CONTACT ME IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS ABOUT THE MOTOR. jdesormeau@billbrownford.com

thanks johnquote]

bump

good info...

holy back from the dead posts Batman! These are the type of thread posts that made this board great! nobody arguing or nobody getting slammed , just good ole info sharing!

I READ THROW YOUR BUILD OF THE EX 514 / 557

I COULD NOT FIND ANY OF THE FLOW CHARTS ON THE HEADS

ALL SO DO YOU KNOW OF A BUILD THAT SOME ONE HAS DONE

LIKE YOU DID

BUT USED MAX PORTED THE HEADS

TO BUILD A MAX HORSE POWER 557

WITCH A460 STYLE HEAD DO YOU THINK

IS THE VERY BEST

IF A PERSON WAS TO USEDTHE FOLLOWING PARTS

ELIMINATOR BLOCK 4.500 BORE
BULLET CRANK 4.300 or 4.500
6.800 BILLET RODS
TRICK FLOW TUNNAL RAM 2x4 CARBS ????????
BEST A460 STYLE HEADS ??????????? .900 LIFR OR SMALLER
SHAFT ROCKERS
BELT DRIVE

I AM THINK I WANT TO USE A 4.300 CRANK BUT I AM OPEN TO A 4.500
WHAT DO YOU THINK THE MAX
HORSE POWER & TORK WOULD BE AAND ABOUT WHAT R.P.M.

THANKS
GEORGE

ALL SO IS THERE A PLACE I CAN SEE A FLOW CHART ON THE EX 514 HEADS
AND ON THE MOTOR YOU BUILT & DYNO CHART

THANKS
GEORGE
VAC PUMP
DRY SUMP SYS

I READ THROW YOUR BUILD OF THE EX 514 HEADDED 557 MOTOR BUILD

I COULD NOT FIND ANY OF THE FLOW CHARTS ON THE HEADS

or DYNO INFO { WAS IT POSTED }

ALL SO DO YOU KNOW OF A BUILD THAT SOME ONE HAS DONE

LIKE THE 1 YOU DID

BUT USED MAX PORTED THE EX 514 HEADS

TO BUILD A MAX HORSE POWER 557

WITCH A460 STYLE HEAD DO YOU THINK

IS THE VERY BEST

IF A PERSON WAS TO USEDTHE FOLLOWING PARTS

ELIMINATOR BLOCK 4.500 BORE
BULLET CRANK 4.300 or 4.500
6.800 BILLET RODS
TRICK FLOW TUNNAL RAM 2x4 CARBS ????????
BEST A460 STYLE HEADS ???????????
.900 LIFR OR SMALLER
SHAFT ROCKERS
BELT DRIVE

I AM THINK I WANT TO USE A 4.300 CRANK BUT I AM OPEN TO A 4.500
WHAT DO YOU THINK THE MAX
HORSE POWER & TORK WOULD BE AAND ABOUT WHAT R.P.M.

THANKS
GEORGE

ALL SO IS THERE A PLACE I CAN SEE A FLOW CHART ON THE EX 514 HEADS
AND ON THE MOTOR YOU BUILT & DYNO CHART

THANKS
GEORGE
VAC PUMP
DRY SUMP SYS

Bump for a cool artical