Grooving cylinder heads - is it BS?
 

Saw this:

http://somender-singh.com/content/view/7/31/

Never heard of it, but the way it is written the "explanation" sounds hokey. Anybody have any experience/opinions on this? Gut feel is it is like when they added dimples to golf balls (originally they were smooth) - the fix was by accident, cut balls flew straighter and somebody noticed, I wonder if this grooving isn't fixing some fundamental engine design issue on crap motors.

The air and the fuel is mixed in a swirl pattern when air pulled into the clylinder so perhaps in some form or another one would think that a beveled surface might allow a better swirl pattern. The question is to lab test each motor with different valves heads, bore, stroke, diesel, not diesel etc to see if there really is any efficiency gain.

With such a small groove one would think it would crud up with carbon and be completely useless.

I wonder if a computer could simultate the efficiency?

My Porsche mechanic used to do a lot of flow testing on heads and he said it is NOT obvious what changes will do until you actually measure them. He said the biggest thing was "shrouded" area which is the area around the valves where flow is blocked due to proximity to other surfaces. You get pressure areas that are not at all obvious.

Kind of like people thinking that adding headers or a K&N is ALWAYS a good thing....

Buy one of these:
http://www.turbonator.com/

Will do as much good, and cost waaaay less.

Why don't the auto engineers implement this in their respective engines if its so effective. Makes me wonder.

exactly!

Ahhh,just a new,incomplete take on an old idea.

My Grandfather's friend Sir Harry Ricardo{who designed the first "swirl head"engine,by the way,did this in the '20's.}

Nowadays we have opportunistic hucksters "reinventing"knowledge that has been extant for at least 100 years........

I gotta believe that if this worked wonders, the boys at AMG, SRT, TRD, SVT, Porsche, etc. would have already figured this out and made it productionable.

Indeed..........don't forget HRC and Mugen ;)

Wouldn't a groove lower compression ratios and drop power? This seems right up there with electric blowers.

I want to see an independent dyno run on a stock and modded head.

With nothing else done, removing metal will drop the compression ratio.

Who does nothing else when doing head work?

Well Sport,that's why I always mill my heads and deck my blocks when I rebuild an antique engine,as well as lightening the flywheel and dynamically and statically balancing the crank,pistons and rods.
Since with today's fuels I can increase the compression ratio and thus get more speed,higher RPM with unimpaired reliability.

Adding area to the combustion chamber by removing matter (metal) will increase the volume of the combustion chamber. This would, on it's face, reduce compression ratio. It does not mean it will reduce combustion pressure.

I understand this. However, it is not typical to do head work without replacing pistons and camshafts. Porting is a good example. It's a wasted effort if the engine remains otherwise stock.

If the grooves do what the people who have done it say it does it would not be a wasted effort. Now I'm not from Missouri, but I believe in their saying "the show me state". From what others have done and then reported, it works. I give that no more stock than the doubters, and go into it with an open mind.