CB Performance Heads

Have you figured out how much lift the cam and rockers were trying to produce?

Only about .550 at the valve, which is a high number for street use, in my opinion, but let's just say the "expert" engine builder, in this case, really overlooked the limits of the dual springs CB Performance puts on their heads. The valves were stainless steel, CB designed with CB retainers with one .030 shim under the springs. You see the castings stamped CB on the heads. It is for sure, CB valves, springs and retainers, someone used, looks like they did more port work so guess these heads were done prior to the CNC porting CB now does.

I mentioned the Super Flo heads and perhaps, back in 1988, when I experienced the limit of .590 with coil bind on their Chevy type valve springs, their technical staff had told me otherwise. We fixed the problem with .100 inch longer SS valves, which were cut from some Toyota engine, laying around, at the time, then used the same springs with plenty of clearance for a valve lift of .630. This was a race only engine, but these days, people are running higher lifts on the drag strip than that number.

I see some people showing for street use the FK89 with 1.4 rockers which gives a figured lift at the valve of .585, somewhat radical for street engine use. So, based on that wild cam spec, for the Engle FK89, the CB Performance heads would not allow safe clearance to prevent coil bind, based on the set of their heads I showed in the photo. Note, not a very good photo, but there was damage to one valve guide and on the other ends of the valve guides and some were pushed downward into the port area and also damaged area around the valve guide supports and under those .030 shims.

On my small 1776cc used for drag racing, I had Clyde Berg put in K-motion 800 series Chevy springs, taller ones than the dual common used springs on most aftermarket heads. We used titanium valves, .100 longer , custom made by Manley valve company and RD Spring company custom made titanium retainers. This was to give needed .050 clearance with only .585 inch lift at the valve. With the Berg dual springs, Bugpack "race" dual springs and others, there was not enough spring pressure and mostly on all had coil bind problems with the .585 lift. And, the spring pressures were only 350 psi with open valve, about 150 closed. The K800's gave me at least 400 psi open and 200 psi closed. I was shifting at 9500rpm most of the time.

On a street engine, I have in my Rat Rod, I am using RD Spring company dual springs, good for up to 8000 rpm. Made in the USA, for motorcycle use, they fit nicely in the VW heads with no machine work. The spring material is smaller in diameter of the wire, but has the same or better pressure rating as Berg's dual springs, actually, slightly better. Those RD Spring company valve springs, due to the smaller wire diameter do allow for the .585 lift at the valve, unlike the other tested springs. It's just good spring material they use and they look better, to the eye. Check out their web site.

My recommendation for a wild street engine is to not go over .500 lift and 300 duration. The dual springs which come on most aftermarket heads can handle that valve lift, but limit your rpm redline to not more than 7500, to be safe.

Then, there is the subject of clearance between the open valves and the pistons, another long topic. I rarely run over 8:1 CR on my street engines, to allow for plenty of clearance inside the engine. Being somewhat conservative, by most people's standards. But, get away using regular unleaded, the cheap stuff. Texas now at $1.98/ gallon, as of today. Wow !!!

CB's CNCed 044 heads all offer high-lift springs and valves as an option if valve-lift is over .550 or so. It's an extra eighty bucks. It's all pretty straightforward, with no deception or shortcoming in the advertising or the product.

 

Daniel will ask your valve-lift you plan to use when you call to order, and if it's close will recommend the option.

 

RE: Super-Pro heads: 200 cfm @ .500 lift (25 in W/C) with a 75 cc intake runner volume. Those are fantastic flow numbers, with really great port velocity. It seems a guy can have his cake and eat it too. Since CB came out with these heads, I don't know why anybody would keep using the wedge-ports, except that some people get frozen in amber and just refuse to keep up with any changes.

 

FWIW, <.5" of lift and and 8:1 CR target is Gene Berg territory. I'll bet you can run your street engines on 87 octane gas. There's no shortage of people who anticipate using 93 octane, and who would rather have the "snap" and combustion efficiency higher compression ratios and higher lifts afford. Long duration cams are another matter altogether, although "advertised" numbers mean a whole lot less than numbers at .050".

That's good information to know about what CB offers. I did not build the engine, which messed up the heads. I only rebuilt it, used Brother's VW Machine shop 42X37.5mm heads with 60cc chambers, mild D-ports, not wedge. Customer likes the performance , better now, after my rebuild of his engine, in crème puff speedster.

My race only engine had welded up stock VW German cast heads. Ran 18cc in chambers, 44X37.5mm valves with ports large enough to put your hand in them. I cannot describe the port design, but bench flow was 210cfm at .600 inch lift with 90.5mm cylinders/pistons.

Looks like the original builder of the 2387cc I rebuilt, did not know about the $80 option.

Currently, Brother's heads with matched intakes cost right at $1000/ pr. with shipping . On my Rat Rod VW, Brother's heads with 42X37.5mm SS Manley valves, RD Springs, titanium retainers, mild D porting and only running the Engle 110 cam, so no problem with lift. Yes, I run on regular unleaded pump gasoline. Every now and then, I run a tank of "high test" through the engine. Gordon, you know what I am talking about.

Gene Berg was preaching long life, as well as performance. You will probably faint when I tell you some of my engines have .150 inch deck height. I am using electronic distributors, with vacuum advance and now run as much as 35 degrees BTDC on timing. Engines run great and no overheating. Oil temperature stays at 200F or lower. Cylinder heads run not over 325F at plug location.

Thanks for the info about what CB offers.

Our standard dual spring with no spring shim set up at 1.500 installed height will coil bind at .560 lift. Rule of thumb I tell everyone is run .050 less lift than coil bind. So, you were OK up to .510 lift but with the spring shim thickness your builder installed?, who knows.

     Our standard dual spring sets up at 150lbs @1.500 and about 340lbs @ .050 before bind. We offer our #1493 spring which is a higher quality spring allowing lift too .630. I typically set this spring up at 1.520 installed height, giving it around 165lbs seat pressure. At .050 before bind, open pressure is 440lbs. This is the same spring we run on our very successful Pro Gas drag racing class.

   In the end, it is up to your engine builder to set up the valve train correctly. This is where you pay for experience, knowing what spring meets the customers needs, knowing how much pressure a cam/lifter can handle, rpm expectancy from the engine, opening and closing velocity's of the cam, jerk rate, etc. It's all about experience that comes with allot of years in the industry and knowing what works and what doesn't.  

So, the problem with the CB heads, I replaced was not the CB heads, but the "expert" builder missed using the correct springs and set up on the valve train, for the extreme high lift camshaft he picked for the engine. Good explanation of what caused this engine's problems, not the product, but the engine builder.

Thanks, Pat, for confirming some numbers I pulled from my memory, which were right or close enough. --George K.---

CB does not know the lift of the engine the heads are going on unless the customer tells us. Most do not know when I ask or even better, use a calculator to multiply their lobe lift x the rocker ratio. That one always cracks me up because rocker ratio's can be off as much as .050 lift. Rule of thumb, check everything and never Assume anything lol.

   I read your reply on the K-800 springs you ran in years past. Personally, I have never seen a K-800 spring control a valve past 8600 rpm. The springs frequency range and material quality will not allow it.

   

Clyde Berg rebuilt the heads , for more lift at the valve and I think he used the K800 springs. Maybe, he used a different brand ?

Now, don't have the heads, so all I know, is that shifts were done for three years at 9500. The heads looked good, once removed from the engine. === My Chevy friends love the K800's. ???

Chevy engines and the type-1 air cooled engine are worlds apart. We use a 10'+ long push rod that is heavy and deflects, small base circle cams, tiny cam cores that deflect with increased spring pressure and only 3 cam bearing journals. To achieve lift in the VW engine, we have to do it at the lobe, unlike the Chevy that uses a 1.5 ratio rocker as standard. The increased lobe lift creates acceleration rates that will destroy a valve spring.

   I know Clyde really well, he's a great guy with tons of knowledge.

  

I raced Chevy engines, before going to VW air cooled.  I know the differences.

 

Possibly, I got away with using the questionable K-Motion springs by the use of

Manley titanium valves, RD Spring company titanium retainers, Berg's hardened keepers and only ran .585 inch, measured at the valve.  Also, used the latest bushed aluminum rocker arms on Pauter's solid 1.4 ratio set up.  My push rods were thick walled 3/8 from Jaycee.  Perhaps the mild , by race standards, lift allowed the springs to not wander around at higher rpm amounts.  All I know, is that it worked.  I did have the thin walled 3/8 diameter Jaycee in the engine for some testing period of time and when I pushed the engine over 9000, one of them bent, slightly.  When I cut it in half,  to figure out why it failed, I realized I had bought the thin walled push rods, so ordered the thicker walled ones.  That solved the only problem I had with the valve train.  The cut to length push rods were done so I used no shim under the rocker arm assembly and also used Pauter's larger rocker arm studs, but with two nuts on them, jammed together, as I did not have the needed clearance for his "special" rocker arm retaining nuts. 

 

Early on, also had the first edition of Pauter's aluminum rocker arm shaft set up with the needle bearings.  There was too much side play or rocking play when you looked at the tip of the rocker arm move several thousands, but Don changed over to the bushings and that removed almost all play and any play I found in the rocker arm set up on my engine.  Lots of trial and error on parts. 

 

I was running 12.5CR as the most I could squeeze out of the 1776cc engine.  Diamond pistons could not design 90.5mm pistons to be light weight and clear my valves, with only 18cc in combustion chambers , to get the CR higher. Their first engineering plan only gave me 10.5:1 and I told them to cut the weight off as this was not a turbo engine.   I wanted to have 14:1, but physically impossible.  There are limits on the small size engines. 

 

Three years of experimentation with the 1776cc and it was interesting, but I never got down to the times I was hoping for, mostly because I take it too easy off the line.  Car weight, with me, was 1820 pounds, not light.  Did run a best of 12.5 @ 103 mph.  My son's 1776cc in his 1974 - 1850 pound Bug ran 12.14 @108mph in 1/4 mile back in 2001.  Clyde did the heads on both engines.  Awesome porting and lots of bench testing for flow and velocity.  These were stock cast VW factory heads, as the rules required.  Have a good day.  

I'm not trying to discredit your accomplishments in any way. I just question allot of what I read because I have been in the heart of this industry for 30 years.

  What class in 2001 allowed only VW casting heads? The only one that I can recall was called Super 1600 sponsored by Fred Simpson of Performance Technology. This was a 1600cc only class.

 

Most guys who attempt to run very small displacement engines will have their combustion chambers digitized and run a domed piston btw. Helps to make up for the deep valve relief pockets.

We had perhaps the only serious running VW Beetle in both IHRA and NHRA Super Stock Class. Back in 1999, when my son started his racing the class was SS/CC. You can look up his record , but we went 1/2 second faster than his record in IHRA before someone ran into his car and totaled it, in a time trial. I think Hot VW's might still list his old slow record in their magazine.

Engine was only 1776cc, weight of car , in SS/CC form was 2040 pounds and in SS/BC was 1850 pounds. My car ran in IHRA under Super Stock SS/BC and in NHRA under SS/FC or might have those wrong, as my memory is not great, at times. Again, my Beetle weight with me in the car was barely above their min. of 1800 pounds with 1776cc engine. These are legal classes which both required and still require the use of stock cast VW heads.

I have raced ET brackets with my car and so did my son for over 10 years. We beat everyone we raced in Texas when doing the ET stuff, so decided we were so good, we went with Super Stock class and got our butts wiped out. V8's with Automatics are hard to beat in basically Super Stock, which is foot brake only, no electronics.

This is posted , I am sure, on Google, about my son, if you look long enough on the Internet. He raced from 1999 to 2001. I tried my hand at the same class from 2007 to 2011, then decided I had spent more money than I wanted to spend, to have fun. I am still a member of NHRA and 4888 is my ET competition number. I still like doing some limited ET racing against the V8 guys, in foot brake class.

There is a class they use in NHRA for SS, for VW only and I think now they allow aftermarket heads, so the CA. guys are more into that class. That never appealed to me and they had just gotten the new class for VW's going, when I dropped my interest in serious racing.

I like to say my son and I are "semi" famous. Just joking. But, we were doing what nobody else was trying with the only Beetle racing in both IHRA and NHRA Super Stock for three years. It cost a lot to make 200 plus horsepower from a 1776cc engine. But, we did that . Seriously, did that until the accident and me running out of fun money. Been drag racing since 1961. Wow, you are a young man. Beetle ET racing with the V8 guys and at many Texas VW Bug events from about 1980 to 2008. My last win was at the Texas Metro-plex in daily driver, took first place at that 25th. year anniversary event, only VW cars. That was my last race in 2008 where I did a win. With my nicely set up SS Beetle. Daily driver, had to put on street tires, and see how long they would spin, on the launch. Fun !!! The car maintained it's Texas license and safety inspection. It was that stock looking and equipped, when racing.

I posted one or two pictures of the SS car in the topic General , under George Who ? You can check out the pictures of the SS car, without slicks.

I know you knew that. Diamond Pistons , $800 later, did some nice work on the design of the pistons in my engine. My son's were reworked by Clyde Berg, using Mahle 90.5mm from Berg then welded up under the dome, then cut the pockets. Yes, they held up, until he went with custom made pistons. Mine were custom made for my engine, only good for one engine, due to lift, valve sizes, deck height, all the data you know about.

There comes a time when you cannot gain more CR as you cut pockets for more lift, then cannot make up for that cut metal with higher dome on top of pistons. I never liked the way the piston company put raised areas around the spark plug space on the pistons, to gain some added CR. My thinking was we get the best flame travel with flat top pistons, so the more dome or raised area on top of the pistons, the worse is the flame travel. Just my thinking, which might be wrong. Of course, we indexed our spark plugs and on my son's engine, if you put the wrong plug in the hole, the tip would hit the piston top, they were that close. Indexing to locate the tip thousands of an inch away from the piston was needed. People have no idea how complex all this becomes for max. HP from a small engine. We get bored reading the HP numbers on 2387cc engines. Well, they should produce a bunch of power , due to size of the engine. Right ? The 200hp 2332cc CB sells or sold was a good deal, for the money. Not legal in the SS class we ran in.

With stock VW heads, we know of nobody else who has built a 1776cc with 210HP, as my son's engine produced. Brian, the guy with the dragster, I think in Washington State wanted to buy my son's heads, as when tested, they out flowed his heads, he had from Steve Tims. Steve's were good, ours were better. Welded up stock heads. The SS class requires them. except in the new VW only class. ---George K. --- ps. a few of us, in Texas know a little about VW engines. Recall some people from Dallas going out to CA. and showing you guys something fast. Stay friendly !

The class today is SS/VX, 12.5lbs per CI and still VW castings only. I believe the record is a 10:4? something set by either Mark Prothero or Doug Gonzales. Not sure who, they both were battling back and forth with it for a couple years.  I enjoyed reading about your drag racing history, Super Stock is an extremely competitive class.

     I designed a class for VW racing in California called Pro Gas, with a set weight of 1725lbs and set engine size of 84x94 with Spec off the shelf CB wedge port heads. The class resembles Super Stock but with far less money to race. The record is now down to 10.67 using off the shelf heads with stainless valves, VW diameter springs and 48mm carbs. You can find the rules on CB's website, you should check them out. The class is the most successful class in years mainly due to the low cost to be competitive.