Edelbrock aluminum head in the works

I wasn't able to watch the video to see if it was mentioned but I received an email from Edelbrock today saying the price should be between $1300-1500 and will ship out on 12/1/2014.
 
IdahoEagle said:
Kinda thinking that 3.6 Pentastar V-6 wouldn't be a bad idea for an XJ swap... Even better if you throw that supercharger on top of it...
Click to expand...

So long as the heads clear the shock towers (been meaning to check that now that I have a 3.6l car too) that could range from pretty damn awesome to borderline bonkers. Find a way to make a JK 3.6l with one of the 8 speeds and that supercharger work with a 242 or 242HD then stick axles with 4.11 gears in one of the older, lighter XJs on stockish sized tires, could make for one damn quick XJ.
 
Should knock a bunch of weight off the front axle too, I think the bare Pentastar block might weigh less than one of the cast iron 4.0l heads, according to Allpar's Pentastar offshoot site, the fully assebled 3.6l weighs 35lbs less than the later 3.5l V-6 from the later Prowlers through 2010 as well as 70lbs less than the 3.7l out of the Libby, WK, and Dodge trucks.
 
I've noticed that the top half of the exhaust port was broader compared to the lower half. The larger exhaust ports of the 7120/0630 tend to have lazy/slow exhaust velocities towards the bottom portion of the exhaust port. I guess by narrowing the bottom portion of the exhaust port, they created a squeeze effect to equalize the flow velocities across the entire exhaust port. At least that's how it looked in the video. Could have just have been an optical illusion.
 
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Hesco claimed a 30 lb weight savings. Not a big deal. An aluminum block, though...
The Pentastar would be a great swap IF Chrysler was as easy for the aftermarket as GM.
I wonder what an all aluminum 5.3 weighs?
 
Any speculation on how much SCR/DCR you could get away with while still running 87 octane with this head?
 
Stock is 8.8:1. Possibly bump it up to 10 or greater. However, SCR isn't that usable of a number to figure octane. DCR is more important here, which takes the cam into account. DCR of 8.5:1, maybe more should be possible on 93 octane.
 
I was thinking that would be a hard question to answer without knowing the cam and quench.

We ran 10:1 on 91 octane with a 7120 head in the team naxja car with no problems at all. Didnt need to bump up to a race gas mix until after we passed 11:1.
 
cal said:
I was thinking that would be a hard question to answer without knowing the cam and quench.
Click to expand...
that is correct. Even going off of DCR it is still just a guide.
Didnt need to bump up to a race gas mix until after we passed 11:1.
Click to expand...
That would be a good application for this head. Either use 93 octane or bump the compression higher and continue on race gas.
 
I was messing around with the compression ratio tool at the other site... There's enough cam variability/ availability to get the DCR from low eights to low nines without trying too hard.

Iirc with .044 gasket worked out to ~10.5 SCR.
 
So, some bench racing questions...

If you were to build a typical stroker and got around say 250 hp, 300 lb-ft out of it... Think this head would be additive to that (i.e. +~20 hp, +~30 lb-ft) or the potential gains would scale higher? Much higher?

For someone that doesn't care about the weight think it would be better to port-n-polish, three-angle a stock 0331 casting you already have? Get similar gains as this head that way but for less money?

Just asking because while I was seriously thinking about getting rid of the Jeep for a 'Cruiser I think I'd rather just do a stroker and reno the kitchen instead - at least for now. Jeep works, just needs more towing guts and I still need to diagnose that puff of blue smoke at startup.
 
The gains would be that you could potentially run a little higher compression on a little lower octane without pinging/detonation.

But just bolting it up to a 4.0 block in stock unmodified form, you wouldnt get any of those gains. You'd still have too much quench for it to do anything major.

On our car (I think we're 11.6:1 but I don't have the sheet handy) we run a mix of 100 and 91 octanes. On this head I could probably get away with strait 91 octane most of the time, so over the course of 30 tanks of gas or so it could pay for itself.

But then, it will take is 3 years to run 30 tanks of gas.. :)
 
Yeah, just thinking out loud... Edelbrock probably decreased the size of the combustion chamber to increase the compression ratio to a very safe value as a bolt on to a 4.0 with a stock cam running 87 octane...

Seem plausible?
 
You arent going to bring it up very much by messing with the combustion chamber, and you really need to fix the quench first anyways.
 
Yeah, was trying to noodle a practical DCR for 87 octane. Wish my Jeep had a knock sensor... I'd set it up for 91 and forget about it. Some of the places we go when road tripping only has 87 though.

Quench at ~0.044 still the ball park desired set up?

RENIX cam, Edelbrock 55 cc chambers, 17.5 cc dish, 0 deck and 0.044 quench gets DCR ~7.61 (SCR 10.4).

That's compared to bolting the Edelbrock head to a stock late engine with DCR 7.71, SCR 8.98.

Completely stock with late cam (my engine) DCR is 7.47, SCR 8.7, quench 0.0725.

Seems Edelbrock has the head setup with compression ratio that is really conservative for a bolt on? Am I looking at it wrong?
 
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