TA / Wildcat heads

[minorv8]

Casting quality looks nice. My heads from ACR are not that nice. I´m assuming there are no guides fitted because seats are missing.

There is a a lot of potential in the heads, should be an easy 300+ hp from a 3,9 litre engine.

Another source of good info: http://forum.britishv8.org/list.php?6 .

[MG22]

Morning all,
I am after a bit of advice with your experinces with the TA heads for the RV8.
I set arrived in the UK for me after a long wait)). We are slow build on the engine - as these heads are new to me, so please forgive my questions if they seem silly (and pictures not in order of questions...!);

1. Who would you recommend for porting and finishing? They need done as TA don't have a porter
2. What did you use for intake and valley gaskets?
3. We know that the RRs they sent are not correct (so I am chasing to get these replaced, see pictures)
4. It says that you can use solid or hollow pushrods, but dimentionally, it looks like we can only fit hollow rods. Is this correct?
5. The oil way looks to be closed (see attached photo), was your assemblies the same, and did you leave them (relying on hollow rods) or did you machine that open?
6. Anything else important you you think is worth knowing?

Thank in advance

[Blown v8]

You can use “cut” down rover inlet gaskets, and standard rover/TVR exhaust gaskets
Mine have been extensively ported, rover won’t fit, so I have my inlet and exhaust gaskets made by
Ram gasket solutions,

I used hollow pushrods, I bought my heads from TRS in Australia,

[ChrisJC]

For the oilways - check on the block as there is only one, at the front of the engine if I remember correctly. But the head gaskets have two holes so you can use them on either side. Not sure if that relates to the missing holes on the head or not!

Chris.

[MG22]

Many thanks for the reply B V8
How have you got in with them. Everything you'd hoped for or still room for improvement?
I'll be using them in a N/A set up.
Cheers

[Blown v8]

Pic of gaskets I use, with part numbers,
Please note, inlet gaskets come in different thicknesses,
Really helpful,just ring them up, and talk to them

[MG22]

Pic of gaskets I use, with part numbers,
Please note, inlet gaskets come in different thicknesses,
Really helpful,just ring them up, and talk to them
CE10997B-7F7E-42B2-9EC9-23AD4A7365C7.jpeg

Brilliant stuff. Thanks for your help

[kokkolanpoika]

This is my wildcat setup.
ACR heads with smallest possible valves. 1.87" and 1.53".
John Eales manifold modded to suit heads and 48mm Jenvey throttle bodies. Kent M256 cam.

[scudderfish]

What coilpacks are those?

[stevieturbo]

They look like the IGN-1A's many people use these days

[scudderfish]

They look like the IGN-1A's many people use these days

At £100 a pop, I think I'll be sticking with my VAG 4 post coils for now

[stevieturbo]

They look like the IGN-1A's many people use these days

At £100 a pop, I think I'll be sticking with my VAG 4 post coils for now

They can be had cheaper, or at least used to be a lot cheaper.

A lot of people using them, they are massive overkill. I don't think any RV8 ever would really need or benefit from them, even if it was like 14:1CR on methanol lol

regular OE LS coils can be had for sensible money if you find someone with good used units ( complete with brackets and wiring etc ), always best to buy genuine GM

But almost all half modern coils are very powerful, CNP does tidy things up though with no spaghetti plug leads everywhere, so worth doing for that alone IMO even if no real performance need.

[kokkolanpoika]

I bought those coils over 10 year's ago. And i think they cost all eight approx 350€ ~ 300£. They are aprox twice vs vag coil bag 10 years ago..

Yes they are maybe overkill. But after that never had any issues of emission at MOT. HC is slightly over 200ppm without any adjustment. And have Kent M256 full race cam.

[MG22]

Well, it's been a long long time, but just thought I post on my work with the TA heads.
The journey has been long, a bit of a challenge and expensive, but we have a working engine and happy to relay the delta in heads on a real world test.

This is a race engine for a race car, so please take that into context.

Same car, same tramsmission, same diff, same wheels and tyres.
The build with the TA heads is +85bhp and +77lbs/ft on what a 5ltr with Stage 3/4 CNC heads (V8D, JE anyone else that supplies etc etc), jenvey 50s downdraft and a 256 cam.

That is a straight comparison on the same dyno. I can be confident of the outcome as I have both engines, so I am comparing 1 v the other in the same car.

What have we learned?
The heads are great. Good product and very well cast and machined. Anything under 5ltrs or unblown its not worth it in my opinion. At or over that and its game on. An aggressive roller cam set up is needed. I am running a 256 and it really does want to go 7,000rpm+ on the dyno data, so a roller cam with a big profile will help and will also help get to that upper end safely. The dyno curve is 'beautiful', with no dips or odd peaks. That compares to the Stge 3/4 hears which have a 'dip and lift' around the 3.5k mark.

There is no doubt that buying a crate LSx would have been much much cheaper, but this was a bit of a Rover engineering exercise for me also, so despite the challenges, I enjoyed the process.
Oh..... and be confident in your engine builder..... that is another valuable lesson I learned along the way.

Good luck!
Martin.

[Blown v8]

Thank you for the update, looking forward to the next one !