Flow developed cylinder heads, high performance engine building, big valves and other performance parts
Order and Enquiry Status
Feb 2008. I'm taking on head and engine work again for the next couple of months.
Special Offer
10% off all Catcams products - cams, vernier pullies, valve springs etc during February 2008. Select your product from the Catcam's website at http://www.catcams.be/index.htm and I'll email a price. I can also help with camshaft selection for specific applications. I'll need to know your engine, CR, induction system, any mods, desired power band - mainly where you want it to start pulling from.
Fuel saving gadgets
Or those meant to allow you to use unleaded fuel with no other modifications or add power to the engine. Before you buy any of this crap, which includes magnets, catalysts, air bleed devices, resistors sold on Ebay, tin pellets in a tube, turbochargers powered by a hair drier motor, strangely shaped vanes inserted into the air intake which supposedly add 'swirl' to the air, things you drop into the petrol tank and other snake oil have a read here. http://www.fuelsaving.info/index.htm. I've been looking at these products for years now and the vast majority of them are useless junk designed to do only one thing - make the seller money at your expense. Avoid at all costs. There's a very simple rule. If something was cheap and easy to fit and actually did anything useful with no unwanted downside the OE manufacturer would have put one in to start with.
Say NO to 0870
Most people can now get phone service which gives free calls to 01 and 02 numbers. However, most large organisations want you to call them on an 0870 or 0845 number which you get charged for and they make money on. If only you could call them on an 01 or 02 number but you can't find out what it is. Now you can. Go here..link
You can type in the company name and get their normal landline 01 and 02 numbers. No more charges for calling your bank, insurance company, Internet Service Provider helpline, even the Police numbers are listed.
I now distribute Catcams cams, vernier pulleys etc. All their products are listed on their website at http://www.catcams.be/index.htm. I'll get a price list up when I have time but they're very competitive as regards other companies products. After unhappy experiences with other cam companies I find Catcams reliable to deal with, they have a good range of effective profiles and also let me design specials as needed which they then add to their range. I can advise on engine specific cam selection as part of head or engine build work.
Congratulations to Sean Richardson for what we believe is one of the most powerful 2 valve per cylinder 4 pot engines in the UK. A ZVH (CVH head on a 2 litre Zetec bottom end) Sean had about 220 bhp when he came to me for one of my UBV (ultra big valve) CVH heads. The first dyno runs put that up to 300 bhp on the same boost but the turbo was causing lag and there were other problems to correct. The UBV head giving an extra 80 bhp though - which was nice. With a new roller bearing turbo and some induction and exhaust issues fixed it's just produced 428 bhp and 404 ft lbs at 28 psi boost on Engine Advantages rolling road. http://www.passionford.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=223162
A new article on choke sizes for DCOE type carbs has been added.
A new article on exhaust valve sizing has been added.
Contact Details - Email and snail mail addresses. Details for sending payments. Terms of business.
Company Services and Products - basically what I do and don't do. Please read before asking when you can bring your car to my 'workshop'. I don't work on cars!
Price Guidelines For Cylinder Head Work - should put you in the ballpark for heads that don't have their own tuning article yet.
NEW - Mi16 /S16 big inlet valves (36.5mm) now available. £140 per set of 8 plus £4 UK postage if required. Not suitable for the Gti6 engine which has 6mm valve stems. December 2006 - only 1 set left in stock. It might be worth making another batch but only with 5 or so orders up front.
Other valves available - 43.5mm and 45mm CVH, 44.5mm and 46mm Pinto, 43mm Peugeot 205 - all at £15 each plus £4 UK postage per set.
PRICES - The company is not VAT registered so any prices shown anywhere on this site are the total payable and therefore the same amount for export sales.
EMAILS - A fair proportion of emails are from people who say they have just read the tuning article relevant to their engine and then ask for prices and power outputs for head work or something else similar like cam choice that is already covered in detail in the article! One of the reasons for putting so much information in the articles was to save having to type it all out dozens of times a month for everyone who emails so if you fall at this first simple hurdle your email isn't going to get answered - sorry. Also please keep emails short. I spend dozens of hours a month trying to keep up with emails and long ones or ones asking for lots of information aren't going to get answered. I cannot enter into detailed correspondence with people wanting further discussion about the technical issues covered on my site. I answer questions in the uk.rec.cars newsgroups as time allows.
Customers - and my experiences of them. Which type are you?
History Page - Company history and championship wins
TUNING GUIDES
General tuning guide - an evaluation of the potential power increase from commonly used tuning mods. If your specific engine isn't covered below then have a read of this. Even if your engine is covered in a more specific article below it will be of benefit to read this first to get a more thorough initial understanding of tuning principles.
Ford Crossflow
Ford CVH
Ford Pinto
Peugeot 205 8 valve
Peugeot M16
Engine Capacity and Compression Ratio - how to calculate them
Power and Torque 1- How they are related and the
maths that explain them
Power and Torque 2 - Output levels for road and
race engines, Volumetric Efficiency and improving engine design
Power and Torque 3 - How they are measured, engine
dynamometers and rolling road dynos
Coastdown Losses - A real example of how these
affect quoted "flywheel" power figures
How not to set up a car on the rollers - A case
study of the dangers of relying on inaccurate flywheel power figures from
rolling roads
Top Speed - how engine power and vehicle top speed are related. Using one to calculate the other. How speed affects fuel economy.
Lightening Flywheels - A brief exercise in rotational dynamics showing the effect on vehicle performance of lightweight components
Computer Simulation of vehicle performance - the realistic alternative to dyno testing based on measured acceleration
Transmission Losses - the final piece of the jigsaw
Part 1 - Getting the car and engine ready for
a power run
Part 2 - Choosing a rolling road and what work
you should expect to be done when you get there
Evaluating an Engine's Power Potential
Article 1 - What is the main factor that determines
an engine's power potential?
Article 2 - Other things to be considered, comparison
of 2 and 4 valve per cylinder engines
Article 3 - Conclusion, calculating the power potential
of an engine in road and race tune
Exhaust valves - what size to use
Fuel supply - Guidelines to ensure adequate fuel supply for the target power output
Calibration - How fuel and ignition systems are calibrated. What "chip tuning" is meant to do.
Combustion Theory - basic combustion theory, using gas analyzers at a rolling road session
Choke sizes - for DCOE, Dellorto and other one choke per cylinder carb setups
Tool Use Techniques - How to dismantle and reassemble properly. Dealing with stuck or corroded fastenings.
Compression Test - How to do one and what it shows about the health of the engine. Also explains "leak down" tests.
Fitting a new cam - How to fit and run one in properly
Part 1 - The mechanism of valve and seat erosion - why leaded fuel was developed.
SDS tech page - Here's an excellent site packed with accurate technical information on engine tuning, engine dynos and chassis dynos (rolling roads to us in the UK), combustion theory, turbo systems, fuel injection and other good stuff.
Jim Hearne's ZVH (zetec/cvh
hybrid) site - everything you need to know about mating a cvh cylinder
head and turbo system to a 2 litre Zetec bottom end. Loads of photo's (which
I know my own site lacks but just wait till I get that digital camera). I
did the ultra big valve head (45mm inlet valve) and some of the other engine
work for Jim. Car should be mobile by about the end of July 2001 he tells
me.
Sept 2001 - Well it's run in and boost upped to just 7psi so far and now
he's grumbling it's too powerful and he can't put the power down :) The diary
page of the car's history is
here.
August 2002 - rolling road tested at 226 bhp at the wheels (at least 260bhp
flywheel) on only 10 psi of boost which should give an indication of just
how much air that 45mm valve cylinder head now flows.
All the material on this website is my personal copyright. Reproduction of any part of it either in print or on another website is prohibited by international copyright law. I'm happy for other sites to put up a link to my articles provided I'm asked first but not for any of the material to be copied on another website. Contrary to popular belief, something published on a website is not now in the public domain and free to be copied by anyone who feels like it. I take action against the publisher of any website using my material without my permission. A good summary of copyright issues can be found here.