This echos what I have been thinking all day; gauging general market interest from the responses for a small hobby group on forums is not going to give anyone any real clue of the size of the market. There will always be those 'coming out of the woodwork' who never will be known ahead of time in these discussions. Advertising will do wonders in opening up opportunities.

With rising interest in cars of the era in which the /6 was active, it will be carried along for some years, IMO. People growing up riding in these cars as kids and teens are retiring and have time, and a few have a bit of cash to blow on memory lane.

Over the past several years I would say there have been at least a dozen, perhaps quite a bit more, people who have come on this site with cash and intentions to build up a Slant, but who went away because there were very few "bolt on" kits or parts they could buy. There are more people out there with $5000-10000 to easily burn on engine parts than you might expect.

For reference, many SB Chev and Ford guys or import guys would consider a "cheap" rebuild or hipo build to be $10,000. I am not saying all of them, but many of them. We all go to car shows and see lots of engines with $10,000-40,000 in them, whether we think about it or not. Most of us on this site never spend half of that. Over a span of 2-3 yrs, I went (to me) ALL OUT on my 64 Dart engine and I have about $4000 in it, intake to pan, with coated headers, Jeffrey head, K1/Wisecos... This is chump change to the average show car or Hot Rod Power Tour guy.

What I'm saying is that some of these people would come out of the woodwork and buy an Al head with barely a thought, if it were available.

Slant on,

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988

I would readily pay $1500 for an aluminum head that flows ~200cfm outta the box and is a rather bolt-on-and-go ordeal. I mean, I've got $1200 bolted to the side of the engine to begin with!

And I'll put my money where my mouth is

I think more would be interested in it than people think, and while people have their suggestions and such, I think that whatever you made would sell, as long as it was better. That's a lot of thinkin' tho...

For example: Edelbrock's Performer SBM heads. $860 from Summit. Each. And then they need taken to a machine shop immediately to be disassembled and checked, so on and so forth. And people buy 'em left and right. You've got a minimum of $1700 in a low quality mass production head. So, looking at it that way, $1500 is VERY reasonable and I'm gonna guess would sell well.

When I listed my '73 Dart on Craigs List a man came to look at it who told me he built a '68 Dart super stock clone. When I asked about the motor he told me it has a 600 inch Chevy motor. No Hemi? He spent a fortune on a Chevy powered clone that was not what it looked to be. Some have lots of misdirected funds.

The short term costs of the head would probably be a money loser in the first five years but when there are ongoing orders a decade from now then that issue is settled. Depends upon quality and perceptions of customer service. When Jack Clifford was living his company had a good reputation, but many people have concerns about ordering Clifford parts now. Jack loved Hudson motors and his hobby became a obsession/business for him. The people who run the company now are only looking for the short tem, there is no passion. There are intangibles which kill these type of projects. Dealing with complaints would cause most to quit, which is why some sell on Ebay "as is".

You're not looking at just a cylinder head, its a business and there are plenty of neurotic customers to deal with. Many 1-800 credit card project builders can be jerks. Which makes it easy to quit when you're losing money on the deal.

Send the complete head to me, I'll run around South Texas in the hot summer and give it a quality certification I'm pretty sure the head can find a test team on this forum. But outside of here is a different bunch.

Seems like someone needs to take the Argentinian Head to the chinese part-copycat guys at let them do what they do best. Cheap parts by the pound!

I think you could do a two piece head if you milled out the "bathtub" first before anything else, then indexed the billet to the plane of the water core, then welded a cover on the bathtub. Then completed the milling of the head, the ports, deck etc. That progression would eliminate minor warping as a consideration. The top cover can be thin. I think there have been some two piece heads on the H.A.M.B, but usually only one was made. There is some "fun" projects on the H.A.M.B. You can also make a head as a weldment, or even a block.

You can make the head a bit wider and drill and plug holes for the water flow, like is done with oil passages. This is where software is helpful. The heat would transfer more efficiently with alloy than iron. I think the steady flow of the coolant is probably more critical than the volume.

Someone could probably do this with a low cost Rong Fu manual mill. If you were doing a full bore race head then maybe all of the work is okay. It almost seems like the work of a gunsmith.

I think a full bore slant six really needs a wet sleeve block as 3.70-inch sleeves could allow 290 inches with a 4.50-inch stroke. The bigger values would be the big benefit.

Dennis that's right the rockers were a lot less than a $3000.00 head, but we had five guys step up for the $3000.00 Crower billet cranks. I would rather try to sell a $3000 head than a $3000 crankshaft.
I'm thinking canted valve, stock port layout but raised, 1.8 ratio rockers, chamber like the Nascar P7 head, 10:40's N/A here we come.

Mark

I do know at least one guy who thought he was going to die still owning a billet crank too. It has since gone to a good home.

A set of your rockers is laying down in my shop.

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Official Cookie and Mater Tormentor.

I can attest to the cost differential with our hobby and say, that of an alfa romeo or Porsche enthusiast. While I'm suffering from serious Slantsickness, one of my buddies at work is an Alfaholic. Everything he buys for his GTV is 4x-10x what slant/old mopar parts cost. He was looking at a new dash for it, including the wood trim, dash pad, etc. They wanted $5k for it. The repro wood trim alone sells for $500 - I made his wood trim for his dash in my garage for $60 in materials.

Here are the veneer blanks I cut next to the old pieces. He wanted a radio delete.: http://s785.photobucket.com/user/67dart ... u.jpg.html

Here shows how I wet the veneer and bent it to the shape of his console as a mold.: http://s785.photobucket.com/user/67dart ... y.jpg.html

Here are the final pieces after stain and several coats of polyurethane/sanding/polyurethane.: http://s785.photobucket.com/user/67dart ... z.jpg.html

I made these because I wanted to help my friend, but also, because I wanted to see if I could do it and how hard (or easy) it was. The thing is, he tells me these parts are waaay nicer than the ones you buy for $500. They aren't "perfect" but they were easy to make and still better than what you can buy.

brian

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https://tinyurl.com/yynpj4v2

Speed costs money, how fast you wanna spend?

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Official Cookie and Mater Tormentor.

Well, I guess I will Slant on Lou, and further the cause of Slantdom for the greater good. One advantage I have over companies like Clifford or Offenhauser is I don't have to make a profit from the car stuff I make to replenish or further fund more car parts projects. So all the money I throw at stuff like this aluminum head is purely disposable income. So whether if makes a profit, breaks even or not, really is irrelevant because I am doing for other reasons than money, I just like to help take things to a higher level.

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There's no such thing as too much cam....only not enough engine!

If you Build it they will come


Greg

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http://www.youtube.com/hyperpack

Its not unreasonable, as if Chrysler was bringing back the Hemi V8, which we know could never happen.

Sweet! Take Mark up on his offer of his head for a pattern. It works pretty good.

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Official Cookie and Mater Tormentor.

Fortunately, that's not an area I need any assistance in, thanks though. I posted some screen shots on here over 6 months ago of a chamber design I will be using that was taken from a pretty top shelf CNC ported race head. Since I already have considerable time in making and testing this design in both 3D modeling simulations and flowbench testing, i'll continue on with this one. Had I been starting from scratch I would gladly take him up on his offer.

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There's no such thing as too much cam....only not enough engine!