Jones Head - Racers Only

[Erik Jones]

Joey, John, Sean

You guys have some good points and let me try to explain those.

"Controlling the Casting or Manipulation of the castings"
Its not as easy as it sounds, when i started this whole deal it was a big eye opener... I thought the foundries could "just add material and make me a head". Any time you want to move or add material it requires a mold to do so and they are expensive to do this. The process of casting a head is very expensive. This casting has everything it needs to prep a current day super stock head to legal specs with no welding....I have no need to "Hand scrape or manipulate the casting". It is available to everyone to use in the same form.

"Moving guide locations"
The heads are sold with seats and guides installed and it would require the same amount of work and welding to move them as it would for the 4 other heads on the list. You still need to remove the seats and guides, weld them up (including the valve bowl) do your offset and re install the seats/guides. Same process as you would do for any cylinder head.

"Bogus welding"
I meant this in the form of external welding. All welding inside the ports is legal, external is not.

"Cost"
To prep a set of current day heads for Super Stock you will have a min of $7500 in them and can be as high as 14K. If you start with a casting like the FE Pro Port head from Edelbrock you eliminate about 2K in welding...This was the whole point of doing this when they submitted that head 8 years ago. Another side to this is if you destroy a head it is way easier to take a new casting, run a cnc program thru it, cut the valve job and flat mill it and be done.

In my opinion, the combos that have a replacement head right now make it unfair to those who don't... now everyone has the same part to start with and it is up to the head porter and engine builder to make a better piece instead of having a better part to start with.

[SS734]

Originally Posted by Erik Jones

Joey, John, Sean

You guys have some good points and let me try to explain those.

"Controlling the Casting or Manipulation of the castings"
Its not as easy as it sounds, when i started this whole deal it was a big eye opener... I thought the foundries could "just add material and make me a head". Any time you want to move or add material it requires a mold to do so and they are expensive to do this. The process of casting a head is very expensive. This casting has everything it needs to prep a current day super stock head to legal specs with no welding....I have no need to "Hand scrape or manipulate the casting". It is available to everyone to use in the same form.

"Moving guide locations"
The heads are sold with seats and guides installed and it would require the same amount of work and welding to move them as it would for the 4 other heads on the list. You still need to remove the seats and guides, weld them up (including the valve bowl) do your offset and re install the seats/guides. Same process as you would do for any cylinder head.

"Bogus welding"
I meant this in the form of external welding. All welding inside the ports is legal, external is not.

"Cost"
To prep a set of current day heads for Super Stock you will have a min of $7500 in them and can be as high as 14K. If you start with a casting like the FE Pro Port head from Edelbrock you eliminate about 2K in welding...This was the whole point of doing this when they submitted that head 8 years ago. Another side to this is if you destroy a head it is way easier to take a new casting, run a cnc program thru it, cut the valve job and flat mill it and be done.

In my opinion, the combos that have a replacement head right now make it unfair to those who don't... now everyone has the same part to start with and it is up to the head porter and engine builder to make a better piece instead of having a better part to start with.

What is the Edelbrock casting number you are refering to regarding the accepted "FE pro-port head"?


Rich Pinoski SS734

[SS734]

I see it now Edelbrock 61857

[Erik Jones]

Originally Posted by SS734

I see it now Edelbrock 61857

Sorry Rich, i just saw your post. That is correct i don't know exactly when it was approved but it has been a long time.

[nhramnl]

Those of us who have been around Super Stock racing for a few decades have heard this kind of wishful thinking story before. "My new product will lower costs because it will eliminate manual machining or modification steps that you're currently paying for. And if you break a piston/head/block, you just order-up a replacement and you're good to go". Through all of those situations, I have never seen the cost (or complexity) of anything go down. And the net effect of every single one of these "make it faster and cheaper for the racer" initiatives was Super Stock moving further and further away from what it was when it was conceptualized, decades ago. When one guy starts using these heads, everybody will see that, to remain competitive, they will all have to. And almost immediately, cheaters will begin illegally modifying the one-off, never-offered-in-production heads, and NHRA will be forced (because they have no backbone) to make heads with changed valve angles, raised, lowered or back-cut intake and exhaust flanges (to yield straighter and/or larger ports), etc. legal. And our already virtually Comp cars move another increment away from any kind of affordability. As I said in a post couple of months ago, wonder why Sportsman drag racing is dying? Because nobody can afford a $150,000 Super Stock car. I don't begrudge Mr. Jones his idea or his products; I just don't understand what problem they solve, versus the problems they'll create.

[Mark Yacavone]

Originally Posted by nhramnl

Those of us who have been around Super Stock racing for a few decades have heard this kind of wishful thinking story before. "My new product will lower costs because it will eliminate manual machining or modification steps that you're currently paying for. And if you break a piston/head/block, you just order-up a replacement and you're good to go". Through all of those situations, I have never seen the cost (or complexity) of anything go down. And the net effect of every single one of these "make it faster and cheaper for the racer" initiatives was Super Stock moving further and further away from what it was when it was conceptualized, decades ago. When one guy starts using these heads, everybody will see that, to remain competitive, they will all have to. And almost immediately, cheaters will begin illegally modifying the one-off, never-offered-in-production heads, and NHRA will be forced (because they have no backbone) to make heads with changed valve angles, raised, lowered or back-cut intake and exhaust flanges (to yield straighter and/or larger ports), etc. legal. And our already virtually Comp cars move another increment away from any kind of affordability. As I said in a post couple of months ago, wonder why Sportsman drag racing is dying? Because nobody can afford a $150,000 Super Stock car. I don't begrudge Mr. Jones his idea or his products; I just don't understand what problem they solve, versus the problems they'll create.

Never mind. I don't have a current number.

[SS 7777]

I like the idea of the new cylinder heads. It’s getting harder and harder to find the old heads we have aftermarket companies like Jones trying to make the sport better The head is available to everybody NHRA can still tear you down can still look at it Dominic Camera 7777 SS

[nhramnl]

Originally Posted by Mark Yacavone

Never mind. I don't have a current number.

Sorry, but I have no idea what this means...