Reverse port? I don't know what to call it

[dwilliams]

One of Mickey Thompson's stock-block Indy engines was an SBC with reversed ports. Cast iron heads, with the exhaust in the center valley and intakes outboard.

I fretted for years about the pictures, trying to figure how they could do such a drastic job of cutting and welding and brazing on an iron head *and* make it live for 500 miles at Indy, when much simpler alterations couldn't make it 1/4 mile at a time.

Many years later I came across an article that mentioned in passing that Mickey had had someone at one of the GM foundries break off part of the water jacket core before casting, so instead of somehow welding tubes in and making it work, it'd simply carved through solid metal on the outboard side of the heads. Well, "simply" by comparison; it was still quite a trick.

With aluminum heads it would be a simple matter of a competent TIG guy, and maybe a temporary access hole or two, but welding iron isn't so easy...

[cjperformance]

reversal of 'port flow' is when the factory intake port is used as an exhaust port and the factory exhaust port is used for an intake port, sometimes being heavily modified and sometimes remaining in a near stock but ported condition. In the late 50 early 60's using the factory intake post as an exhaust port was seen by a few racers as an easy method of gaining a great exhaust port for a forced induction engine with minimal modification and at the same time allowing the use of 8 into 1 extractors or 180deg interference extractors.
Then the original exhaust port would be heavily modified and the biggest possible valve used and the 'new' intake port would be fed typically by a Paxton or McCulloc supercharger. They figured that running high boost thru the albeit smaller port would still provide plenty of intake flow to make plenty of hp and that the old intake port in unmodified form could then easily exhaust the quantity of exhaust gas produced by the engine. I guess they had to think outside the box in the days before aftermarket heads with good ports were easily available.

A few side valve V8's ran both intake and exhaust in the center of the engine. Great for heating the intake in cold weather!

The ford quad cam 255ci v8 of the early 60's ran as a 'center exhaust' or 'reverse flow layout' due to vehicle chassis config being able to have an advantage in aerodynamics with an engine of this layout.

The Gerney Eagle/Weslake heads came as 'standard flow' and 'center exhaust'/'reverse flow layout' to cover different exhaust , intake and chassis requirement's.

So reverse port flow and reverse flow engines are different beasts. Both very interesting though.

[technicaltom]

On the subject of moving intake and exhaust ports,In the UK. in the late 60s early seventy s i came across Ford non crossflow engine s where the original [side] intake was blanked off and then the cylinder head was milled-filled-welded-ground-polished to become what i would describe as semi downdraft , one example used Weber downdraft carbs. A hell of a lot of work , but as a poster above mentions there were very few probably no aftermarket options available in those days, so you had to think outside the box.
If the original poster above does try that configuration on a V8 [ Intake on the outside ex. inside] maybe he would post some photo s

[miniv8]

reviving this thread back from the dead...

Are there any swap-valve-cams available today for the Small Block Chevy?

[pamotorman]

Crower had some dominating Indy small block chevy engines that used Crower mechanical injection on the ex ports, and used the intake ports for ex. They were so powerful, I think they banned them.

Frank

here you go the crower indy engine

[pdq67]

It appears that BMW and GM beat me to the punch.

http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2008/ ... popup.html
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I think GM 1st did it to one of their diesel engines to hold the exhaust port lengths to a min. by putting the T in the top of the V..

But I may be all wet here.

As for making a narrower engine package, I kind a doubt it because you still need intake manifolds on each head! Unless you did it like some old flathead engines that had the intake and exhaust ports coming out side by side at the V..

Now if somebody would use high pressure, high volume, "air injectors", as well as, "fuel injectors", and do away with the intake valves, this would be way cool!

pdq67

[englertracing]

didn't ford have that in the early 60's called the gurney eagle or the gurney westlake? I do believe that it was just in a 60's fairlane in an issue of hotrod mag. They used a version of the 260 inch small block and it was overhead cam. pretty cool for the era.

That was the Ford Indy quad cam,
The intakes went between them cams, straight down, the exhaust were on the outside or inside of the v depending on the intended use for the engine

[englertracing]

reviving this thread back from the dead...

Are there any swap-valve-cams available today for the Small Block Chevy?

I just realized this thread was a revival, I'm sure any good cam grinder can do it, but the core will be relatively expensive

[PackardV8]

Yes, old thread, old idea. In the 1920s, several flathead fours had two intake ports and three or four exhaust ports; obvious idea to swap them.

[grandsport51]

I believe the ford Dohc Indy engine never located the exhaust ports on the outside of the engine,(see Autolite Mustang Pic 32 http://www.hotrod.com/articles/funny-ca ... ge-1966-2/# )they wanted it to be easier to rout the exhaust for optimal firing order of 180 degrees while still
retaining 90 Degree Crank throws
they also used downdraught intake porting (supposedly copied from Maserati 1966 3.0 F1 V12) to minimize interference problems with the Chassis of the various cars it was installed in.
Hank the Deuce and Lee Iacocca's commitment to Racing in all forms made me a Die Hard Ford Guy!!
Dave B

[Ks Fats]

"old idea"

[MadBill]

Looks kinda strangled with those tiny pipes...

[Krooser]

When under boost an engine with a good flowing intake and poor flowing exhaust can benefit from reversing the flow,..

[englertracing]

I believe the ford Dohc Indy engine never located the exhaust ports on the outside of the engine,(see Autolite Mustang Pic 32 http://www.hotrod.com/articles/funny-ca ... ge-1966-2/# )they wanted it to be easier to rout the exhaust for optimal firing order of 180 degrees while still
retaining 90 Degree Crank throws
they also used downdraught intake porting (supposedly copied from Maserati 1966 3.0 F1 V12) to minimize interference problems with the Chassis of the various cars it was installed in.
Hank the Deuce and Lee Iacocca's commitment to Racing in all forms made me a Die Hard Ford Guy!!
Dave B

There's a drake sprint car sitting in the justice brothers additives museum with the exhausts on the outside.

[Walter R. Malik]

I believe the ford Dohc Indy engine never located the exhaust ports on the outside of the engine,(see Autolite Mustang Pic 32 http://www.hotrod.com/articles/funny-ca ... ge-1966-2/# )they wanted it to be easier to rout the exhaust for optimal firing order of 180 degrees while still
retaining 90 Degree Crank throws
Dave B

YES ... finally someone brought this up. Although the intake was right down the middle of the head.
In the 60's, half the field in the Indy 500 had this engine. The exhaust headers came to be known as "the bundle of snakes" and the rights to this engine was later bought by A.J. Foyt to become widely known as the "Foyt" engine.