PolyQuad - A new four valve power concept

[MAP]

Greetings,

Just a quick note here - David, I'm very glad indeed to hear that this technology is patented. In fact, knowing this gives me the courage to say here in this semi-public venue that if a way could be found to produce such heads for popular motors at a "reasonably" cost-competitive price, that I for one would snap them up for my 383 CID SBC. (My guess for "cost-competitive" would be a number starting with a "1" and not a "2," or at least not a "high-2," but then again, I'm an engineer, and not a businessman.)

I'm sure many others would be interested in buying such heads as well - it seems just the ticket for achieving good BSFC's down low for good economy, while not compromising the top end for good power. (Anything, in other words, that maximizes what I call the torque bandwidth of the motor, while also maximizing the area under the torque curve; i.e., the integral of: torque(nu) dnu over the entire operating range of the motor.)

I'm earnestly hoping that some aftermarket head manufacturers are reading and taking very careful heed. All of the low-lying fruit, so to say, with 2V heads has already been picked. Any additional gains are likely to be quite marginal. It's time to move on to something significantly more ambitious like these 4V PQ heads to get a leg-up and grab market share.

On top of all that, and I hope I can say this without appearing patronizing, but it would be wonderful to see you benefit from this financially. You've benefitted the automotive world greatly, and if I can say this unawkwardly, it would be gratifying to see you get a far bigger bank balance in return.

Best,
Mark

[rsicard]

Dusty: Thanks for the answer. Also thanks to Howard for pointing out my missing some phrases. Was the area in red on the backside of the valves recolored to RED in order to gain contrast? Is it really gray wherein IT IS thermal barrier coating or what is it and it attributes? Is all the coating done by Calico or someone else? Please advise. Thanks.

[Dusty]

You got it right the red stuff is a plastic coating that inhibits carbon buildup. David tells me it doesn't last to long though. The chamber side of the valve has a ceramic coating on it to keep heat out of the valve and head

[DavidVizard-GFN]

Originally Posted by MAP

Greetings,
-----------
I'm sure many others would be interested in buying such heads as well - it seems just the ticket for achieving good BSFC's down low for good economy, while not compromising the top end for good power. (Anything, in other words, that maximizes what I call the torque bandwidth of the motor, while also maximizing the area under the torque curve; i.e., the integral of: torque(nu) dnu over the entire operating range of the motor.)

I'm earnestly hoping that some aftermarket head manufacturers are reading and taking very careful heed. All of the low-lying fruit, so to say, with 2V heads has already been picked. Any additional gains are likely to be quite marginal. It's time to move on to something significantly more ambitious like these 4V PQ heads to get a leg-up and grab market share.

On top of all that, and I hope I can say this without appearing patronizing, but it would be wonderful to see you benefit from this financially. You've benefitted the automotive world greatly, and if I can say this unawkwardly, it would be gratifying to see you get a far bigger bank balance in return.

Best,
Mark

Mark,
Thank you for your kind comments here. Yes the comercial success of Polyquad would not only produce a little improvement in the 'eco' arena but also allow me to finance other power,economy ecological ideas. Unfortunatly life does not always take us down the paths we would like to travel.
DV

[MAP]

Greetings David,

About a "...little improvement in the 'eco' arena...", I think I view the matter rather differently. I think the improvement could be substantial. To explain:

If I understand your article correctly, the parameters you used to make the comparison between a 4V PQ and the two 2V heads you cited, were targeted toward matching the low-speed performance of the better of the 2V heads, while letting the inherent high-speed advantage of the 4V configuration speak for itself.

My objective would be different. I already have a good 2V head for my 383 SBC, and would only like a 4V PQ (with its attendant optimized camshaft) to match the existing high-speed performance of the 2V head. The current motor model indicates 80bhp/liter peak at the flywheel.

With this set of constraints, I think the relative torque and BSFC's at low speeds (say around 1,500-2,000 rpm,) would now very strongly favor the 4V PQ head. With this perspective in mind, I would go back to the financial reasoning I used in one of the "34:1 Afr?!" posts, where I spoke of an amortization schedule of payback with gas at $4(ish)/gallon, assuming so many miles driven per year, and a baseline versus target fuel economy.

Just as I wrote there, gas at $4(ish) a gallon tends to amortize engine improvements in the low k-dollar range rather quickly if the car is driven in the vicinity of 10k-miles/yr.

And that would be just one powerful incentive for a head manufacturer to produce these 4V PQ heads. Put it this way - if I were in the aftermarket head business, and I had a choice to develop yet another 2V SBC head (for instance,) versus a 4V PQ head at even a several-hundred dollar price penalty (per pair) re the 2V head, I'd put my R&D and marketing money on the 4V PQ head hands-down. The 2V market is saturated to the point of stagnation and of being a near-commodity, while the 4V aftermarket for, say, the popular Ford, Chevy, and Chrysler V-8's, is fresh.

Some would probably say, well, the 4V SBC Arao heads apparently weren't a financial success in their time, so why should this idea work now?

The answer is two-fold:
1.) Gas is $4/gallon now and probably headed higher over the long-term, despite the current dip. Arao heads were sold when gas was $1.20/gallon.
2.) The Arao heads were quite expensive ($3k-$4k/pair?)

On edit 7/31/08: it looks like I made a serious mistake about referring to the Arao heads in the past tense. A quick check shows that their website is still current. So with more than a bit of embarrassment, I take back the remark about apparently not being a financial success in their time. I also apparently need to take the prices back, as it seems they've roughly doubled since I last heard of them.

In short, the economic situation is radically different today for a PQ head if it could be produced in the price range I cited in my last post.

Best,
Mark

[The Dark Side of Will]

Originally Posted by davidvizard-gfn

polyquad in practice.

the first type of head that polyquad was applied to was the arao 4 valve pushrod chevy head conversion for small block chevy’s. This was a good candidate as we could reference the results directly against a two valve head design. Essentially here is what was done. Russ arao had already done a series of tests along these lines but with all the heads using the same 112 degree lca camshaft. The heads tested included a pair of vortec heads. These heads are considered to be one of the best designs for producing strong low speed output. Anyone who has run back to back tests with a good aftermarket head will attest to the fact that at low speed they are almost unbeatable and are certainly far from shabby at high speed. The vortec heads then seemed like the best to use for our low speed benchmark. To represent an aftermarket head situation i ported a set of a well known brand of heads that ended up at about 185 cc port volume and 280 cfm at 0.600 lift with the flow curve flattening out from there on up. The vortec heads, the ported heads and the polyquaded arao four valve heads were all run on the same short block. In each case the cam events were optimized for the heads concerned. The two valve heads both produced the best power curve on a 108 lca cam. The polyquad heads were best at 112 to 114 lca. The intent here is to see how much better the polyquad heads were at low speed compared to a two valve setup. With the wider lca the intake would close later on the compression stroke. So that there was a total match on the intake closure point the duration of the intake was shortened for the four valve heads so that in all tests the dynamic compression was the same (as was the static compression). The exhaust was also shortened to match the new shorter intake. The tests then were done with each pair of heads having the same intake closure point and an appropriate lca. The results are as per the following chart.

Dave,

I'm really curious about results of a "standard" Arao head (if there is such a thing) compared to the PQ'd one. Did it lose? Did it gain? Where in the powerband did each happen?

Thanks for your hard work. I may end of trying to get the PQ mods done to a set of Olds Aurora heads for my Northstar.