Quote Originally Posted by Amberwood63
Does anyone know, or can they point me to, where I might find 429/460 blue prints/schematics? I am an engineer and am looking to 'possibly' design a boss head for the 429/460 that's not $8,000 but much more afordable!
No disprespect, but how can you produce a hemishperical cylinder head for a price that is "much more affordable" than $8000? Will it be cast or billet? Water jacketed? If cast, are you a pattern maker and if not, have you priced the co$t of having a pattern fabricated? How about raw materials? Ingot aluminum for the casting process? If billet heads, billet aluminum ain't cheap these days, what with all the overseas companies paying top dollar for the stuff. Will you use existing valve train hardware and if so, doesn't this mean buying pre-manufactured components so how does this keep costs down? Or will you design your own valve train? How long do you think this will take from start to finish?

Nothing would please me more than to see another cylinder head option for the 429/460 (there are about twenty five 460 head options these days). But frankly $8000 for a pair of Hemi heads is a bargain...until I suppose somebody starts making knockoffs in China....but I'll bet that the price savings there will be eaten up in extra needed machining, replacement of cheap included parts, and potential horsepower being lost due to inferior design. We have invested decades planning and designing and re-engineering our heads, and none of the parts interchange with any other Ford hemi head out there....it's all a unique design. The time efort and money invested is countless.

If you work for an engineering firm/machine shop and have everything at your disposal, then I'm envious. BUT, I can also tell you of others that have tried to design (or duplicate the oem) hemi heads and had nothing but problems, one example is a hemi top end kit that burns up the customer's #1 and #5 pistons in a single quarter mile pass, every time. Our heads have run on the streamliner for 5 times that distance, with as much as 86% nitro...and never a problem.

Good luck (I sincerey mean that),

Paul