Greg Good gives good heads! -- pics inside!

[Joseph Dell]

Get your minds out of the gutter! Though I wanted to make up a tee shirt that says "I paid for great head(s) from Greg Good!"

For those of you that don't know him, Greg Good is one of the few guys I've met in person that works on Viper heads. I met him at the track of all places (V10 Nats) and just talking to him convinced me to that if I'm going to send my heads to someone, I'm going to send them to him.

And he did one hell of a job on my cylinder heads. Turn around time was just over a week and the quality is incredible! These heads look like they've been CNC machined... but I know he did them by hand.

Great service and excellent work. Oh yeah... the flow numbers ROCK! Can't wait to get these bolted up this weekend! I'll post dyno numbers when I have them.

Take a look at the pics:

No wonder people say that "Greg is 'The Man' for Viper heads"...



JD

 

[ViperRay]

I have tentative plans to get Greg's heads this fall/winter.

Did you go with the Plus heads?

Did you change cam or make other engine mods?

 

[Cudaman]

It seems we can slow you down Joesph ......

I am sure they will be impressive ...... People who care about their product back it up by going to were the racers are, at the race track..... the proving grounds.

Cudaman

 

[Greg Good Cylinder Heads]

Glad your happy with 'em Joseph. I thought they turned out finer than a frog hair, split four ways.

I can't wait to see how they run at Bradenton.

 

[Joseph Dell]

ViperRay -

My car has a DLM stage II+ setup on it. the car was making 850hp at the tires before I sent the heads off. I'm expecting to see... well I'll be happy with 850 at the tires...

Not sure what "plus" heads are...

Cudaman - The only thing slowing me down is my poor reaction times!

See y'all in Bradenton!!!

JD

 

[Cudaman]

Cudaman - The only thing slowing me down is my poor reaction times!

See y'all in Bradenton!!!

JD

Have a talk with your transport guy and your mechanic about working harder, so you can concentrate on just driving.....and then talk to mine too.

Cudaman

 

[Qualitywires.com]

Looks great! What is the difference between hand vs CNC heads. Wouldn't CNC give you accurate flow than doing by eye and hand? Not flaming..just curious..

 

[Joseph Dell]

Greg can probably give a better answer than I, but I _think_ that CNC machining has you program a machine with the exact specs of what you are going to do... which means you need to build a template and test it on the machine.

Mustang heads are pretty easy to come by to test with a CNC machine, but I'd have to imagine that the investment in heads to do porting on Viper heads would be pretty significant. And since every viper application is a little different...

And I'm glad that I didn't have to pay for all that CNC testing that would need to be done... if there were a high volume of viper heads, that might bring the costs down. but with so few around, i suspect half of the cost associated with the porting would be for the machine.

Take the Extrude Hone example... minimal benefits on a viper, but still extremely expensive b/c of the process you are paying for.

Just my state-school-educated .02...

JD

 

[Greg Good Cylinder Heads]

ab, what matters is the end product. Whether it is done on a CNC machining center, or done by an experienced head porter that takes pride in his work and cares about his reputation, doesn't really matter. The CNC heads that have come through my shop over the years have all had a good bit of room for improvement, with a couple of exceptions. I can't count the number of ex-Winston Cup Ford Yates heads I've updated for drag race engines. Typically, they can be improved by at least 40 cfm on the intake ports. When they come in they're usually around 350 cfm, and when done will go over 390 cfm. I have a set of those coming in this Friday to do. 18 degree Chevy heads are the same. There are thousands of ex Winston Cup and Busch series CNC 18 degree heads out there that flow as little as 335 cfm. They can be picked up the same amount as the Fords.

Nearly all of the CNC heads without hand finishing I've seen were on the conservative side, and the flow numbers reflected that. The ones that did flow really well had pretty large runner volumes, usually bigger than what they would be by hand porting. I'm not slamming CNC head shops by any means. It is hands down the best way to rough in a port. I'll have one in my shop at some point in the not too far off future, but it will be used mainly for roughing in. I will always hand finish because it results in a better performing head in my experience. The economy street stuff like LS1 heads and Big Block Chevy bracket race heads can be run as-is right off the machine. But there is a lot of fine tuning that needs to be done on the flow bench to make a set of heads "jam up". Those are the heads most guys want that can afford them.

Some racing heads must be CNC'd because they are so small out of the box it would take a hand porter several weeks to rough them in. The P-7 Dodge Nextel Cup head is a good example. The intake port out of the box is about the size of a 289 Ford exhaust port.

In the end, it's really up to the guy in charge of the end product that determines the quality, whichever process is used. At this point in time, a good hand porter can still stay busy because the CNC capabilites of most shops isn't good enough yet to beat him.

I know it doesn't make sense that a CNC machining center that is capable of repeating within .005" can't beat a hand ported head. It just doesn't seem logical. But, look around at the fastest stuff and darn near all of it is hand finished. It may have been roughed in on a CNC machine, but still had to be hand finished to get everything out of it. Most of the gains are in the valve seat area and fine tuning the shape of the short side radius to balance mid-lift and high-lift flow.

That's just my opinion. That and 50 cents will get ya' a cup of coffee somewhere.

Greg

 

[Tom F&L GoR]

CNC machines are simply copy machines. They copy a port shape, then make all heads like the first one; by itself, a CNC machine doesn't produce great flow numbers. Having seen Yates' shop, those heads are tuned for the angle and height the carburetor sits on the manifold, the length of each runner, the track it runs on, the expected air-fuel ratio or wall wetting of each cylinder... Just wanted to point out that perfect for Cup cars probably isn't perfect for the strip. It's fascinating to find out what guys like Yates find important, what guys like Greg find important.

 

[George Bryce]

Hi Greg, our best head porting guy is Ron, he has been here for 15 years. He was worried when we installed our 5 axis Haas. Little did he realize how it was a tool that would make him more important. The best CNC guy is not the best head grinding guru. We need both. We also had to get us a super duper computer "geek" to pull it all together.
CNC guy, Head guru, Geek, 5 axis, Programer, fixtures, tooling, schooling, and actual jobs to work on = BIG expense. Greg, if I add 200.00 to every set of heads I do from now on....I don't think we will ever pay for it.
Happy hunting, GB3

 

[DLTARNU]

George,

Not to go off on a tangent, but I noticed your sig. Is 542 about the largest bore a Gen II engine can safely take, or has someone gone even larger? How has yours run since it was done? Reliable?

That thing must put out SICK horsepower.

 

[Go Fast For Life]

What are the flow numbers?

 

[George Bryce]

Unrat, I think that the 4.030 is safe as you can go on the bores. It is way more fun than Stock. We are very mild tune at 630 rwhp. The stock rear gears even work very well.
With the 3.55 rear gears it hits the limiter in 4th before the stripe! GB3

 

[Cudaman]

George are you coming to Gainesville and running?

I know you know were the track is and how to get to it.

Cudaman

 

[Torquemonster]

Nice heads!

I agree with what Greg and George have said.

A 5 or 6 axis CNC machine can clone a fantastic port by digitizing it and get very close, but a great porter will always be able to make some improvements by hand on individual heads because it is an art rather than a science.

Maybe one day it will become science - but that day is not here - therefore a good porter still rules the race tracks and is likely to for some time.

One area where a hand porter can never be replaced is the need for many ports to be filled in - yes - actually made smaller in strategic spots to speed and direct flow.... a CNC machine can only cut, it cannot fill - that is done by hand.

The best heads do not have drain pipe ports like the old days - they have the smallest possible port cross-sectional area for the desired flow requirement. CNC machines can only copy what experts like Greg learn by trial and error over years of experience - so the CNC is simply a tool that speeds things up and reduces mistakes/increases accuracy port to port PROVIDED they are set up and operated well.

 

[George Bryce]

Cudaman, I want to, but, I ain't got no Roll cage. Where can I race with no cage? GB3

 

[Cudaman]

George.... No roll cage????? Why???? Your understudies think your wimpy to have one....if so tell them not to race without leathers.


Low tens.....you will be a one pass wonder on any track, then they will give you the boot. Send your car to someone while you are working and get one installed.

Drag racing would SERIOUSLY miss you, if you ever got seriously injuried..... we do not want to watch other people in finals of NRHA... EXCEPT your prodigies.


Cudaman

Sorry Joesph and Greg I am NOT trying to hijack your post

 

[George Bryce]

Ward, I hold the gas down for 10 seconds hundreds of times.
And I am not on the track! The drag strip is the safest place to hold it down. I do not have the fastest Viper or car with out a Bar. Most really fast Vipers have a chassis stiffening bar they call a roll bar. Thank you anyway.
Greg, we can come back to your any time. Thanks Cudadawg,GB3

 

[Greg Good Cylinder Heads]

Keep talking guys, I don't care!

 

[BigCarrot]

Roll cage? We don't need no stinking roll cage! Ward, you ****!

 

[PRVT JET]

I'm glad we have some good tracks around here, the last thing I want is a roll cage in my car.

 

[BigCarrot]

I know! I don't think I could stand to butcher my poor car like that! Everyday driving would **** too!

 

[diabolos88]

Hey Greg do you have different stages for your heads?

 

[VIPER D]

whats the price range??? ball park of course


vd..

 

[STUGOTS]

whats the price range??? ball park of course


vd..

last I checked for the top ones it was $3700

 

[diabolos88]

$3700 is for what stage head?

 

[STUGOTS]

$3700 is for what stage head?

I believe he only has 1 and 2 $3700 is for 2

 

[ViperRay]

I installed Greg Good's stage 2 (if you want to call it that) heads.

The stage 2 involves larger intake seats to get maximum benefit out of the 2.02" intake valve (as I understand it).
He also spends more time on the flow bench with the heads... fine tuning them.

For the extra $200 it's a no-brainer, especially if you're planning on running a higher lift cam (.650"?).

Greg will chime in here again, I'm sure.

 

[STUGOTS]

I installed Greg Good's stage 2 (if you want to call it that) heads.

The stage 2 involves larger intake seats to get maximum benefit out of the 2.02" intake valve (as I understand it).
He also spends more time on the flow bench with the heads... fine tuning them.

For the extra $200 it's a no-brainer, especially if you're planning on running a higher lift cam (.650"?).

Greg will chime in here again, I'm sure.

thats exactly how I understood it as well Ray.