Hot Rod Ethics

Is the kind of mod described at www.somender-singh.com within the ethics of the hot rodder community?

It involves cutting a groove in the cylinder head to promote turbulence, thereby breaking the integrity of the 'origibal' engine.

This is a dilemma because I am considering offering this mod to people in the area and if people will disagree with the practice, then it isn't really worth it.

A few people have found consistent results from their grooves which seems to be highly credible and make the idea attractive:

lower idle speed, increased torque and power and some claim 20-30% fuel efficiency gains, even on the 1/4 mi. track.

So, I'm appealing to the "biggest" hot rod community out there..
is this stuff bunkus? If not, do y'all think it would catch on?

I'd like to do something with it because it seems like a really good idea.

EM

I'd really like to see some REAL non-biased testing. He seems to be making a BIG DEAL about saving precious fuel, apparently to save BIG BUCKS. I'm not terribly impressed with ads that show "Improved heads" followed by pictures of "fast" cars. There is no proof that the cars are the same and that the results come from the head modifications. Plus, it looks to me that the "modification" is likely to develop into a crack.

tom

That appears to be alot of quackery.

Just get out the Makita grinder, and whammo!! , instant fuel economy and power.

That's riciculous IMOP.

(I said so much in my secret code!)




tom

If it sounds too good to be true......it usually is!

Very Very interesting...... deja vu..

There was a fellow doing this in 1961. He used to claim it squirted the mixture across the chamber...
His name was Don Metzger from Lockport, Illinois.
Some of his 2 stroke heads, like those in pictured, had 3 radial grooves.

Some people swore by it back then.....

No, I never ran grooved heads on my engines.....

I used to have one of his heads in my collection, I know in '88..... now I have to go dig through all that stuff to see if I still have it.

id try it on a lawnmower engine before compromising my investment in my motor.

Looks more like it promotes crack (literaly)...?


I`m carving right now on my 990 BBC heads (porting and polishing) but no way am I going to do that kind of demolishion to these babies...

Groover, why not go ahead and try it, then publish your findings here? First though, you need to have a good running engine and get some base line figures. Then modify the heads and stick them back on the same engine, same vehicle, and test again for a couple weeks at least. That's the only way you're going to find out for sure if what you're doing helps.

The theory is sound -- more turbulence promotes more efficient burning. So what don't OEMs jump on it? Increased cost for one thing. You can't cast something like that into the head AFAIK. Extra machine work is required, which increases cost significantly. There's also the fact that they would have to pay for use of the patent, and many engineers suffer from "not invented here" syndrome. This does come from someone who isn't a licensed engineer also, therefore it can't possibly be any good... in many engineer's way of thinking.

If it becomes common practice, OEMs may eventually develop something similar. I think Honda developed a three valve engine that worked somewhat on the same principal -- the third valve was canted to produce more turbulence. May not have been Honda, but I do recall reading something about that somewhere. There are other ways to design a combustion chamber for increased turbulence, and that's more likely the way OEMs will go. The grooves may turn out to be a great modification of existing engines though. If you have an extra set of heads and can affrod the testing, please do!

This guy is a relatively poor inventor from India and has been trying to get his idea recognized and studied more thoroughly by the big car manufacturers in the US for many years. He was always shot down. There was a big article written about him a few years ago. Interesting read, you may want to search for it. Finally, a manufacturer in India funded him a bit and it looks like he has finally gotten the word out.

For you nonbelievers, you should have looked at the "Testing Results" section. One example is here. But this guy does not have the money or the resources to perform massive testing.

Like farna said to you shop owners, if you ever have a spare set of heads lying around, I'm sure we would all like to see dyno info from before and after this mod. There is obviously something to this idea. If it is inded true I'd think about doing this to my truck (10 mpg...).

Here's an excerpt from the site referenced:

"Many people want to know how they can cut their own groove. Here are a few steps to the process.

1. Chose a engine design that has some form of squish or quench. Consider both the piston top and combustion chamber when deciding.
(e.g. dish pistons reduce the squish percentage considerably.)

2. Run a base line test with regular pump gas and production compression ratio, normally near 8.5 to 9:1?

3. Remove the heads and raise the compression ratio up to 10:1, milling the heads is the preferred method.

4. Cut one groove in each combustion chamber like the one in the pictures. So far the straight channel seems to work the best.
(if using a SBC, the grooves will measure near 1 cc volume)

5. Ensure a 0.070" piston to head clearance is maintained, measured at engine assembly. Most hot rodders are tempted to raise the compression by reducing the piston to head clearance down to 0.040" or less, resist the temptation.

Note. Testing continues with various different combinations. With high octane fuel we have seen complete burn at 7500 RPM with the squish clearance set at 0.039" at engine assembly.

6. Bolt the heads back on, leave the tune up alone, measure and report the improvements. Check and correct the tune up as needed and put it in a car (dyno's aren't much fun). You won't be dissatisfied"


I don't have time right now to look at the whole site, but I'd like to see a comparison where the heads are milled first, raising the compression ratio, and getting some dyno numbers. Then, cut the groove, and re-dyno it.

Otherwise, I don't see how you can make a valid comparison.

Another quote from the site sure makes me wonder:

"So why hasn't this become mainstream? We are confused about this also. Dyno testing has been requested by some, but as yet no one has come forward to pay for this testing. Until then, we must continue to perform real world testing.

Dyno's will not show you much about day to day engine performance. A full-out dyno run will tell you many things in great detail, but the relevance to stop and go, up and downhill performance over the long term is negligible.

Trust the people's results"

Uh-huh. Color me a skeptic until someone can show some hard numbers due only to the groove. If you have "relevant" performance increases, they ought to show up on the dyno graph somewhere.

I'd go a little bit farther with the comparison too - since the groove is going to increase the size of the combustion chamber slightly, I think it would be a good idea to slightly mill the heads to keep the combustion chamber size the same. Best would be to do three comparisons:

Heads stock
Heads with groove
Heads with groove and milled so the combustion chamber size is back to the stock test.

Dude if it helps go for it. What are squish and quench?

There are articles on the net covering quench (squish is really just another way of saying it). Mr. Singh recommends shaving the head and states that compression would be increased, but that's under normal circumstances. After shaving the head "to increase compression" you make grooves that increase combustion chambe size and DECREASES compression -- returns it back to the original compression.

At least that's how I'm reading it. The explanation isn't worded real clear, but then I'm used to reading/speaking to people whose native language isn't English. The thought process, or at least the way it comes out, is slightly different. You have to "read into it" a bit.

I will agree that increased turbulence is going to help combustion and power.

But if his grooves actually do this ???????

Think of quench this way:

Did you ever see a kid lay a ketchup package on the table and then slam it with is fist????? That's quench/ squish. (and squirt..... LOL)

That is what happens when the flat part of the piston gets close to the flat part of the head.

Supposedly his groove squirts the mixture out in a stream creating turbulence and better burn.


http://kb-silvolite.com/article.php?action=read&A_id=35

http://www.chevyhiperformance.com/techarticles/94138/

http://www.beckracing.com/page05.htm