Head design and casting cost?

[Keith Morganstein]

What does it cost to design, make the molds/cores and cast a modest run of aluminum cylinder heads?
Not a scratch design, but an adaption of an existing head.

Just wondering what it takes and what does it cost?

In addition, What does it cost to have the head production machined for use? The basic machining of surfaces, drilling and threading holes, guides, spring pads, valve seat pockets?

I see people are doing this... what would it take to produce it as a cast one piece head?
https://www.engineswapdepot.com/?p=4014

[strokersix]

Suggest you contact Tom Lowe. He has recently done valve covers and intake manifold castings for Chevy inline sixes as well as cylinder head machining. He may have some insight on what it would take to do what you ask.

Tell him strokersix sent you if you like.

https://www.12bolt.com/

[jed]

Keith if you find anything out please make a post or PM me with what you find out.
John

[amc fan]

I went to Bridesburg Foundry in Whitehall Pa. 610-266-0900 They have a vendor that makes the wooden patterns . I wanted to have the bottom of an AMC intake cast so I could modify Mopar 383 intakes to bolt on the AMC base with the water crossover,I could then bolt on tunnelram or single plain tops at the track for testing purposes. They wanted 1500-1800 for the pattern and then the cost for casting them.....They also wanted to know the quantity of how many I wanted to cast. I wound up cutting the runners off an AMC airgap as there would not be that many I could sell as I would have been the only one doing this . My friend Scott was the machine shop foreman at the time. They were making and cnc machining bronze valves for the Government and they were busy.

[Newold1]

About $50,000 for the complete recreation of an existing cylinder head by using the part CNC cutdown and auto CMM measurement to create CAD/CAM files for machining the external core boxes. Building tooling for a new head core box (cope and drag) and sand cast core boxes for cores.

Figure maybe $500 per head to cast in aluminum in sand and rough machine ends, decks and flanges in batches of probably 50 minimum.

Figure about $450-$500 to complete head machining and install seats and guides with bolt holes ready for valve and valve train assembly.

Maybe you could find someone with the expertise, knowledge and contacts to take it to CHINA and see what it would cost there.

It ain't cheap at best so do a pro-forma and see if based on a projected sales price you can generate any kind of return before you ever begin and invest a DIME!

[mekilljoydammit]

And people wonder why I'm building the infrastructure to DIY all this stuff.

[JoePorting]

$50k is a good estimate for casting tooling. To start you should find a solid works guy to put your design on the computer. This will give a pattern guy something to work with.

[Newold1]

I wish there was a better availability of a DIY sophisticated infrastructure, but the big almost insurmountable problem with that idea is that the equipment, technology and knowledgeable technical operators is so limited and so expensive that it seems to me to be the root of the high cost factors.

Maybe sometime in the near future the availability of lower cost larger part 3D fabrication and measured mechanical destructuring of parts will allow the creation of less expensive casting structures with newer materials innovations will allow an affordable DIY arena.

I hope so but you won't catch me holding my breath until it's available!

[Steve.k]

50,000 is just the cost of tooling and getting the design re-created if you will. Then you have to find a foundry that has time to fit you in. Most foundries are way overbooking and back logged. Then they would like to run numerous batches at once which in its own right gets expensive.

[mekilljoydammit]

https://imgur.com/a/kgTkdG0

Just something I was working on, speaking of reverse engineering cylinder heads. The fun trick will be turning the slices into a 3d model but I'm pretty sure I have a way to do that without too much work. edit: Well, I suppose I should say "too much trouble" - every step of this is a lot of work.

If you're dedicated enough, you can DIY the foundry work too but I have no doubt that getting to routinely acceptable head castings will be a learning process. There's a lot of technical literature out there to let you crib off of what people have done before. Patterns and stuff are even more easily DIYable.

I am not, however, sure how to get any money out of any of this, but it keeps me out of trouble.

[Keith Morganstein]

It seems so many new cast aluminum heads come out. Many sell for $300-400 a casting.
I suppose if you sell at least a thousand, that $50k up front isn't so bad.

[Newold1]

My question is why is some one not designing and casting a new BBC head with raised symmetrical port intake runners 18 deg.intake valve and 11 deg. exhaust and an accompanying simple 4 barrel intake manifold instead of knocking off and casting up cheaper standard BBC 23-24 degree heads that are flooding the market on the cheap. If the head was cast with enough material around the intake port and exhaust port the CNC's could provide intake cc's anywhere from 280 to 400cc and related valve sizes. There are still millions of BBC's and users out there that want to get into that 1000-1500HP ranges on simple N/A versions and don't want to spend 50K per engine to get there with some of the available high end heads and intakes on the market. Get a pair of these heads on the market complete less rockers for about $3000 a pair and about $500 on the intake the BBC MASSES would beat a path to the door in my opinion. I realize there are some heads on the market like SR20's at $5K -$6K and RFD symetrical port heads at $7K-$8K per pair and intakes at $750 - $1000 but that extra $3-$5K is a deal breaker on a lot of potential users. There is a big market here someone or some company need to tap this potential. The BBC cylinder head market needs an affordable makeover. JMHO

[SchmidtMotorWorks]

Designing, testing and developing engine castings is my everyday work.
If you want to make a low production head, you need to already have access to an efficient system or break-even is many years away for most projects.
Even high production stuff has a long ROI.

For someone that comes to individual service providers, the prices will be as listed below and the results will not be good
unless the whole chain is working together from beginning to end.
If you try to do this one step at a time, expect to fail.

1. Scan an existing casting and head gasket for reference data $300-$3,000

2. Measure a block for precise dimensions $300-$1,000

3. Model the head in CAD $1,000 - $30,000 (for a performance aftermarket head depending on complexity and optimization). Sound expensive? An OEM might spend $400,000.
Do not waste your time with someone that uses Solid Works for cylinder heads or manifolds, the limitations of the software will build compromises into the design.
Find someone with NX, CATIA or CREO that knows about foundry tooling design and casting to do quality work.
There is a huge difference between someone that thinks they can model a head and someone that can design a head that can be used to efficiently design foundry tooling.
A good head designer does CFD on the water jackets and ports.

4. Design/model the foundry tooling (patterns core boxes) $1,000 - $15,000 depends a lot on complexity and how well the head was designed for casting. If you take a short-cut and design a head without knowledge of foundry tooling design thinking that the "tooling guy will just change it" ; plan on spending more that the design cost and getting something different than what you wanted.

5. Tooling, it depends on how many castings you want to make.
The more you plan to make, the more you should spend as expensive tooling makes better parts for lower cost.
$3,000 for a printed sand mold to make one head.
$5,000 for a crude wood pattern for a simple head.
$30,000 for an ordinary performance after-market head in urethane
$50,000-$75,000 for hybrid urethane & aluminum tooling
Prototype casting 5 heads to section for examination and test $2500
Pattern modifications to fix issues, (cracks, shrinkage, warping, porosity, short fill etc) $1,000 - $10,000

6. Casting $200 - $2,000 depending on complexity, tooling, problems.

7. Machining fixtures design $1,000 - $5000

8. Machining fixtures $1,000 - $15000

9. CNC Programming $1,000 - $5,000

10. Special tooling, cutters etc. $500 - $10,000

11. Base machining $200 - $2,000 depending on complexity.

12. Leak testing $30

13. Valve job machining $100-$500

14. Dyno engine

15. Dyno testing

[mekilljoydammit]

That's about the number of zeroes I expected for most of those steps.

Not a hundred percent where you're at on the Solidworks vs NX/etc and would be curious on more specifics. I did work for a small engine OEM (Briggs and Stratton like) who did development in SW and produced parts that were sand or die cast. It didn't seem like the CAD package was the limiting factor, but I haven't gotten that complicated in my own projects.

[SchmidtMotorWorks]

SolidWorks simply doesn't have the functionality required to model the following objects with sufficient control of shape (unless you are satisfied with very simple shapes.) Briggs stuff could be OK in SolidWorks, but useless on stuff where poerfance mattera.

Ports
Chambers
Water Jackets

If you plan to make as-cast ports or chambers that are competitive with todays OEM designs, you need the best tools.
SolidWorks is better suited to machinery.