Other than it was fapping expensive, it's not avaliable anymore and to quote the guy who was telling me about it 'the ports go straight down' No idea of any tech spec or anything sadly
yeah,i thought it was the exhaust port/valve angle that wasnt the best design,compared to the vauxhall lumps... this is a 2.0 16v vw head cut away.
I think the reason the VW 16v's seem to respond perticularly well to a a higher CR is because of the funny shaped squish area ?
Mad MK4's right...huge power increase over 200bhp are prohibtively expensive and in reality have a very short lifespan. They are normally built for pure race with rebuilding after each race. I'd personally live with a nice 180-200 bhp road going car which is very reliable that won't break the bank. Seemingly to get 200-230bhp can be done as Rob T has shown. Ian
The Vaux head has an exhaust valve angle the same as the inlet giving it similar inlet & exhaust flow characteristics. This is the most fundamental flaw vw made with the design of the head. Good design specifies similar inlet & exhaust port angles and length. Saying that, I still think its possible for vw engines to put out good power & torque but it just costs sooo much due to lack of available cheap parts.
My mate has a VW motorsport ported and flowed head sitting doing sod all. 1 small problem with it though.....it has no oil return hole(the nig one) at the fron of the head, not even a blank in the casting to add one either. This is the ehad I copied when i did mine. Its a nice peice of kit, with wasted valve seats and nice port profiles. I'll see if I can get my hands on it to get some pics, but I can't promise anything.
The internal design of the engine is very important. About 10 years ago, I managed to extract 220bhp at the flywheel from a 2.1 8v Ford Pinto engine in my RS2000 Mk2. All the usual mods had been done including a set of Dellorto 48's. HT Racing, have been extracting 240+ from them in more recent years and well over 260bhp from normally aspirated Cosworth 16v's with carbs, although, the design of the Cosworth head is superb. HT Racing
the vw motorsport head is called the drake head. i think it cam out before the road version, there were some pictures of it on vortex some more info i dug up VW 16v head: The VW 16v head is a performance nightmare. I think VW introduced the head merely to say they had one, as they obviously didn't care about performance when they designed it. VW began design of the 16v head about 1980. It went through various metamorphasizing phases before it was released. On one version, the exhaust cam was gear driven, but VW ultimately chose chain drive because it was the quietest way to drive the exhaust cam. (The quietest way they would consider; they obviously chose not to allow the exhaust cam to be belt driven with the same timing belt as the intake cam...which would have been the quietest by far.) According to my sources, VW was planning to introduce the head as early as 1984-85, and some 80000 units were produced. Then it was discovered that some engineer forgot to design water in the casting around a pair of exhaust valves. Overheat = cracked head ==> junk 80000 castings <==> put the program back a couple of years. Before the head came out, rumors were circulating as to its design characteristics. All of us in the high performance business cringed at what we heard. We heard that VW had designed the head with the exhaust valves top dead center over the combustion chamber; the intake valves cocked over about 20 degrees. We said if that was true, the head was junk. We couldn't believe VW (read that ANYBODY) would introduce a high performance head with such awful flow characteristics. When I saw my first 16v head (off the motor), all my nightmares turned into reality. Actually, it was worse than I thought. The exhaust valves were top dead center, but the exhaust ports exceeded a 90 degree bend to allow the gas to exit. This head was obviously not designed for performance. The valves spacing is too close together, thus putting in bigger valves would be near impossible. The only possibility of obtaining higher performance was porting and polishing. Aftermarket 16v heads: There are three aftermarket heads that I know of. Of which, only two can I review - as the third I don't even know the manufacturers name. Oettinger: Oettinger has long been considered the venerable 16v head manufacturer for water cooled VW motors. They have been making the head about 8 years. For the most part, it is a good design. But like the VW head, it wasn't designed for racing, just a little high performance. The head is a two piece head, with the cam housing as one piece, and the combustion chamber/valve housing as another piece. The intake and exhaust valves meet the combustion chamber at approximately 30 degrees. The ports for the valves meet approximately 75 degrees with the combustion chamber. This isn't so good for racing, but is adequate for street use, and immeasurably better than VW's own head. The exhaust cam is driven via gear from the intake cam, and it is a cross flow head. Oettinger went through some pain and expense to make the head California street legal. The kit they offered was based on a 1588cc motor. It had 10:1 compression ratio, and all the parts necessary to put the motor together. It cost $5500.00 and developed 136hp. (Remember $5500 is NOT a complete motor, just the cost of the kit.) Drake: It isn't well known that Drake Engineering also makes a 16v head for the VW. Drake never marketed the head for street use, and instead chose to develop it for racing only. Since Drake is a racing company with a long history of development, they weren't afraid to engineer a head that had no performance compromises. The head is also a two piece head. But unlike the Oettinger, the Drake head afforded all the creature comforts that make working on a motor real nice. For example, head bolts: The openings in the cam housing were designed to be big enough for the head bolt tool (10mm 12point socket) to fit in, but smaller than the heads of the head bolts. What this means is that (picture the head attached to the block) when the head bolts are loosened, the head lifts itself away from the block. No prying or hitting with a rubber mallet. Another byproduct, is that the head bolts made a convenient stand for the head; thus the valves could NEVER get bent by setting the head down. Intake and exhaust valve ports are 21 degrees with respect to the combustion chamber, and the valves themselves are approximately half that. This is the ultimate performance design for ports. Practically a straight shot into the combustion chamber. Because of the port design, the head is slightly wider than Oettinger or VW, but is thin enough to work on a street motor. Austrian 16v: There is a company in Austria that makes a VW 16v head also...but I know nothing about it. 16v performance review: The VW head is junk for racing or high performance. I have little regard for this head at all. For 8v owners, you are best to build the motor you have now, as you can get MORE performance out of it, than VW's 16v. For comparison, I will give specs for both 8 and 16v performance heads: Motor CamHP& nbsp; Induction 8v 1781cc.426&n bsp;130 @ 6500 Fuel injection 8v 1805cc.496&n bsp;178 @ 8000 1 Weber 45 DCOE 8v 1977cc.475&n bsp;185 @ 7500 2 Mikuni 44pph 8v 1588cc.500&n bsp;210 @ 9000 Hilborne F/i(supervee motor) 8v 1588cc.410&n bsp;145 @ ?8# boost Callaway turbo 8v 1588cc.410&n bsp;165 @ ?11# boost Callaway turbo 8v 1781cc.423&n bsp;175 @ ?11# boost Callaway turbo 16v 1588cc?  ;136 @ 6500 2 Mikuni 44pph (Oettinger 16v) 16v 1588cc?  ;178 @ 7000 2 Mikuni 44pph (Drake 16v) 16v 1781cc?  ;123 @ ?KE Jetronic(VW 16v stock) 16v 1781cc?  ;140 @ ?KE Jetronic(High performance version) Racing 16v's: 2021cc 210 DINVW 16v 2021cc 225 DINOettinger 16v 1935cc 295 SAEDrake 16v Who's head performs best? The results are obvious. I will admit that my specs for racing 16v's for Oettinger and VW were taken from printed literature. That's not to say that more power isn't possible (but I doubt it!).
There is an awful lot of B/S surrounding bhp. The VW head is basically a pap design, mostly due to valve angles as Prof says and the VW engine is always going to be restricted by bore size causing shrouding problems. 210, maybe 220bhp is the best it will ever achieve on hydraulics, once past this your into big bucks, solid lifters, steel rods and lots of revs (Rob T world!). There are engines out there doing 260bhp though. The XE is way better by design, but i've yet to see one make its claimed power. Taper bodies and the right exhaust make about 190-195, not 208. Never seen a 20V head but obviously Bill has. The Polo 16v head is proof that VW can design a good head. In 1.4 form some throttle bodies and a proper exhaust makes a real 140bhp. But as with all VW motors, this engine is ultimately restricted by its bore size too.
Oh... really! Out of interest, can any of the high performance heads (Drake/Oettinger) still be bought?
I have seen dyno graphs of an engine very similar, albeit not identical, to mine on 48mm TB's breaking the 250bhp mark - and this costs similar amounts of cash as it would with an XE, Zetec or similar (and considerably less cash than a K-series). If you shop at the right places. Its not big money when you compare with what others are spending on similar performance. In Holland, the VW is popular and there are as many 250hp valvers as there are XE's in this country. Agreed, getting above 250hp starts to get really hard as the flaws in the design really start to matter. Rob
Yup...mine wouldn't run properly with a 268 Ex cam, never mind going wilder - although to be fair, that is probably management dependant. I still don't get why the big exhaust cam is supposed to work better...surely on a well modified head you need to get air / fuel in...the pistons will push the burnt stuff out. In truth, the 268/268 combo did give a few more BHP at the top end...but the 268/std gives more torque and over a larger range...hence, it's quicker on the road. It also has better idle emmissions than a standard ABF. I'll stick with 268 in /std ABF ex...
wot would be the best cams for a ABF Block with KR gas flowed head.running on standard k-jet and Ron98 fuel. p.s. vw singh what make is that roll cage in that MK1? Edited by: Brookster
