vrus

This is exactly what everyone needs to keep their eyes on.. Peak numbers are great for bragging rights but that is about it.

Increasing the efficiency of the motor, dropping boost, and making the same or more power is a great result!! Not to mention, if it moves the torque & hp curve up across the RPM range the car will be much more responsive and powerful even though the peak numbers might not change..

Once Jim's car is done and my car is finished, we'll have a good variety of dyno charts to show how much more power different configurations will give us. Not to mention PTE has a wild setup on his car also.. Watch out for PTE's car as I have a feeling it will make some serious power!!

We can only speculate at this point as to what the increases will be but we will have hard data very soon.

vrus

Went by the shop to take some progress shots.. Heads are coming along great.. 1 cylinder head is complete and the other side is almost done. All the valves have been back cut and swirl polished (blended). By tomorrow afternoon, the heads will be reassembled and packed for shipping.. (Jim... buddy... I will have these babies back in a box and out by Fedex next day air.. as long as I can get them before the 3pm cutoff they will go out tomorrow.)..

The heads were surfaced and 6000ths/inch were removed. The idea is not to take alot of material out of the combustion chamber.. Basically what was done was to reshape the chambers and then blend everything in. The exhaust ports is where most of the porting occured as well as some on the intake side.

The combustion chambers and exhaust ports were micro polished to enhance airflow through the head.. Only the intake side was left un-polished to allow better fuel atomization.

Now, onto the eye candy...

Below is a picture of the one completed cylinder head as well as all the valves that were back cut.



Here are some close up shots of the finished combustion chambers.. The areas around the valve guides were reshaped and smoothened out..




Here is a closeup of the exhaust valves and one of the intake valves. Both valves were back cut but only the intake valve was swirl polished.. They do a total of 3 cuts on the valves to reshape them.. The first cut is 45dg and the other 2 are radiused to blend in with the top of the valve tulip. The stock exhaust valves have a coating on them which the machine shop didnt want to disturb so only the first 2 cuts on the exhaust valve were polished (blended).

The back cutting and swirl polishing improves flow from what I am told.



Here is what the finished exhaust ports look like.. They were basically opened up and gasket matched. Notice at the edge of the exhaust ports those little "bumps"; those are oil drain back passages.. You gotta be careful at this point because if you go too much you could go right through it.. This is why you should only allow an experienced shop to do this work.

I will make another post in a few minutes explaining some differences between the different versions of head castings that Mercedes Benz has so everyone can gain some insight.



Here is a nice closeup of the exhaust ports.. Notice how smooth the chamber is.. again, pay special attention to those "bumps" on the sides..



Last but not least, here is the intake side of things.. See how these ports have a rough look..



A nice closeup shot



Finally, the master at work doing his thing... This is the other cylinder head which is almost complete.... Just needs to finish up the intake ports and polish up the combustion chambers a bit...




I hope you guys enjoy the project as much as I am.


Jim: I want to thank you for entrusting me with these valuables.. I hope you enjoy the finished product. Looking forward to hearing your feedback once everything is buttoned back up and you get to drive it for the first time..

EUROTEK//AMG

whats the price on the STG.2 head ? and STG.2 head with Ferrea valves (STG3 ?) ??

Jakpro1

This is me walking around with wood!!!

Sorry for the bad visual!!

Fast55

You guys are some sick ba***rds. Keep up the good work.

MB_Forever

Very impressive, I'll be awaiting the results very closely.........

JamE55

Looks amazing! Almost seem like those are brand new.

jmf003

Looks first rate!

E55 RUSS

Well I hope it works out well for buddy and car will make more POWER and become FASTER...due to HEADs not CAMS...

More effficient flow is good but more stress with larger pulley on SC cause of extra boost requred is not good...there is always a downside...+ less POWER...

Jim...I think you 1st test the car with your old CAMS and see what the diff in power and then test with VRP cams..this way we will know for sure if there any benefits of doing heads...

Good LUCK


VRP TOP mount Cooler, VRP Cams and Larger 185-190 pulley this is way I plan to go 1st

vrus

I'll get back to you as soon as I get the bill for JakPro's set.

Jim basically gave me a blank cheque to get them done so we planned out the build and decided on heads & cam upgrade..

I am expecting it will be $3,500 at most for the labour.. Its $3,200 for the cams and $375 for the titanium retainers.. Approx $7,000 gets you heads & cams...

To go to stage 3, the only difference is the Ferrea oversized valves which adds another $2,200 approx to the total bill.

I will post exact numbers once I pick up Jim's heads.

I take that as a compliment.. Thanks!!


Thanks Guys!!! I am just dying to see the dyno numbers...


Mike.. I think the results will be very good!

Ohh... Vadim & I already have a solution for the "boost" issue if it arises... hehehehe.. Wait till you see what is coming next!! Those M5 will need binoculars to read your license plate when you race them... ahahahhahaa..

Jakpro1

With all these great new mods coming out, I need a new strategy for raising funds.

(5 mins later.....)

vrus

Don't worry Jim.. I've got it all figured out.. Once VRP starts hitting TV & radio, I'll need you to do some voice over and marketing work... We can barter..

TT Kit and SLR coolers in exchange for some marketing... How's that sound bud?

vrus

Heads are done!!!!!!

In on Monday morning, out on Friday afternoon.

Those nice shiney caps ontop of the springs are the titanium retainers that we added.. They are going out next day air so Jim's shop will have them on Monday and should start reassembly shortly thereafter.

JamE55

Keep posting those motivational pics Vic! I'm almost ready to send you a blank check myself. LOL I will admit that those really looks very good.

Just need to find out how much increase it'll put out?

Jrocket

Victor,do you have any flow numbers from before and after? Im curious to see what the MB heads flow compared to others out there.

Jakpro1

Just SO FAR above and beyond what I dreamed they would look like. Thanks so much Victor!!! When V and I first talked I literally said, "Boy Benz heads sure are kinda ugly eh?" You see the Hotrod magazines with the Brodix heads and you kinda dream. V told me over and over, "You just wait until you see them when they are done. You won't believe it"

F Brodix!! (looks wise) These are beautiful man!!





Just incredible. My props to the head master at the shop.

Now onto install and dyno!

Fleebee

That's sex. I'm already hemoraging green backs. Please stop it.

V12Godspeed

Screw the 65!!!! Victor get ready I am sending you my entire engine when I get another E55...

Unless you tell me you could give me something close to 700RWHP on a 65...

Jim!!! I see it all the way 10.8 @ 126-130MPH.... ALL MOTOR

vrus

Oh we'll find out alright.. Jim will hit the dyno right after it is all put back together.

This was the flow testing done on the stock heads..



Since Jim's job was a quick in and out, I didnt want to delay it by doing flow testing.

I am in the process of having Stage 2 and Stage 3 cores prepared and sitting on a shelf. Once I've done both sets of heads I will get them flowed that way I'll have the data for both setups.

This will allow me to do 1 - 2day turnaround.. When a set of heads comes in, all that needs to be done is transfer the customer's valvetrain and reassemble and ship out.

I am so glad you are happy with what you see!! I hope they give us everything we are hoping for once the dyno is done.

Try and take some pics during installation... and definitely do some video on the dyno.

Thanks Lee!!!

Hey.. I have an idea.. We can apply some of your credit to a set of Stage 2 if want??

Thanks bud!!

Jody.. You can have your choice.. doesn't matter.. Vadim & I are working on a SL65 (car is in our possession) with a 1000hp target.. heads, cams, turbos, intercoolers, exhaust, intake, ECU/TCU. (some pics to follow early next week)

Want to be #2 in the 65 heads list??

vrus

Here is some interesting information I found with regard to 55 Kompressor heads. I've worked with 4 sets of MB heads so far.

During the course of the 55K lifespan, MB made some changes to the design of the heads.. I am still trying to figure out when and how these were done...

The 2 distinct casting numbers I have are:

- R 113 016 16 01
- R 113 016 24 01

Here is where it gets weird...

JakPro's heads are casting # R 113 016 24 01 .. You can clearly see the casting # on one of the pics I posted.. His car is an EARLY 2003 build..

R 113 016 16 01 I pulled from a 2003 55 motor that was supposedly a SEPT build (Sept was a cutoff point when MB made changes to the 2003 car).

So, in this case Jim's car has the REVISED casting #'s even though his car is an early build...

Below is a side by side pic of a closeup of 1 exhaust port that I took from each style of head casting.



R 113 016 16 01 Casting
-------------------------
- On the earlier castings, you notice I circled 2 areas near the back of the chamber on either side of the exhaust valve. Those 2 bumps you see highlighted are the spark plug chambers.

- The angle of the spark plug chambers was such that they partially entered the exhaust port.

- Notice there is no bump on the side of the exhaust port near the opening.. On this earlier casting, the oil drain back passage was pushed further away so it didnt protrude in.

R 113 016 24 01 Casting
-------------------------
- This casting shows the opposite.
- The angle of the spark plug chambers were changed so that they dont protrude into the exhaust chamber
- The oil drain back passage was modified and now protrudes into the exhaust port opening.


I showed these differences to the machine shop that does the work and he said that on this application the 2 spark plug recesses wouldnt impede flow and not to worry about it if I happened to get a set of heads that were like this.

Any of you guys that have any insight into heads and chamber design, I'd love to get some input on what you think.

Also, is there any way to find out if the cooling passages on the later style casting were re-routed to improve cooling or was it only because of the change in the spark plug chambers???

Thought I would share this info with you guys since most people dont really get a chance to see this stuff at this level...

NitrogenBalance

WOW. Very nice.

So you plan on using a "core exchange" for buying these heads. This would probably be open to only the M113 kompressor heads correct? As I've been told the other M113 heads are less impressive.

Thats a great idea for turn around.

Whats the deal with the raised waffle pattern on the heads. Is this just something to do with casting the original part?

vrus

Yeah.. for the kompressor heads I'll have the cores.. I figured most of the guys that will want this done are the 55K guys so in order to minimize their downtime, the heads will be cleaned, prepped and ported..

All that needs to be done is for the valves to be lapped in and valvetrain assembled.. shouldn't take more than 1 or 2 days to do that.

Waffle pattern? Not sure what you mean..

NitrogenBalance

Really a useless curiosity. I am refering to the flat exterior areas of the head that have a grid waffle type pattern on them. It was something they did when casting the piece and was just curious why.

I can see why you would stock the E55K heads as 90% of whats interesting here ends up on an E55K anyway. Nice work!

vrus

Ahh.. I see now.. Could it be cooling related?? No idea to be honest..

vrus

Heads are in the U.S.A but being held up by customs... Hopefully Jim's mechanic will get them by end of day..