Rudy's grooved 232 head

Kdancy

Rudy asked me to post this for him as some have been asking about his info on the Singh groove.

Updated info-
second picture of 232 head re-sized to make it bigger.

RL Chilton

So, the picture doesn't blow up and I don't understand what we are looking at. Is this the block and are the grooves in the top of the pistons?

What's the blob covering the valve and running onto the piston?

Also, the document doesn't download.

Lee ODell

That is the head with head gasket on it. The groove is cut in the head near the edge of gasket to the combustion chamber.

I could not access document either but by searching "Singh Groove" on internet brings up alot of information about it.

Lee O'Dell

Chris Smith

tried to open the file and my computer wigged out and I had to shut it off and turn it back on to return to normal

Chris Smith

Would be nice to know if Rudy found the groove to be "all that and a bag of chips".

Kdancy

I tried to copy and paste the article, but the forum wouldn't take it. I'll see if I can break it down and do two posts.
Yes, Rudy really thinks it helped.
Part one--
UPDATED COPY
From Somender Sing 3-16-2005
• Somender Singh
• Singhs letter to me after I sent him my testing report.
To Harry Bennett (Rudy)
• HARRY BENNETT

Dear Mr. Rudy,
HUDSONLY !

Sir, It is great to hear from you – I am so happy you managed to get rid of the rattle in your flat heads Hudsons. There is a lot more to it. You just need to get the groove or call it channel a little deeper & a little longer into the combustion chamber – The width looks perfect – you could just take a thick industrial hacksaw blade and achieve the same – Making sure you do not touch the rim of the head gasket by any chance. The channel needs to extend a little deeper towards the plug touching the roof of the combustion chamber. Do it in steps. This design in any form will induce turbulence as the piston reaches the end of the stroke and further distinctly cause a spike of flame front to penetrate the deepest part of the combustion chamber preventing the knock or bells ringing. You will be surprised this design changes the combustion pattern preventing the formation of shock waves that cause head distortion and blown cylinder head gaskets despite the increase in compression ratios. Some day you could torque the head bolts a lot lesser by 25 to 30% and run the same torturous tests to find out the head gasket stays in place ? I advice this only under strict test conditions only – Not on some lonely forest road – If ever something had to go wrong !

The next time you get the head out after doing some heavy testing under heavy loads – kindly pull the head out, clean all the gasket cement / sealant / carbon, etc & apply some blue and place the head on a good surface plate – You will understand the truth behind my design change – To your surprise the head would not have distorted or caved in at all – Indicating a softer but much more effective pattern of combustion.

By now you would have noticed coffee brown appearing on all the plugs – you would have also noticed far lesser carbon deposits in the exhaust system ( depending on your cylinder bore / rings / piston tolerances ) When you rip the head off after all your tests - you will notice the exhaust valves would have turned coffee brown with no traces of soot or black - I cannot give anymore explanations – It’s upto the professors and big Daddies of R & D labs spending millions if not billions to figure out – How this could be happening – And that too out of a induced crack in the most stressed component of an IC engine called combustion chamber.

For your reading kindly go through the following text and see how the world perceives combustion – And the next step would be what you have achieved out of my simple design – I am sure if you get the carburetion and ignition fine tuned - the economy will also go up ! See if you can run the engine little cooler around 45 to 60 degree centigrade by removing the thermostat – Your engine oils will stay clean for a lot longer duration. ( make sure you have everything in place when winter sets in ? )

Happy times – Do stay in touch – We are all proud of you Sir & the HUDSON Club – Feel free to tell the world of what you see, feel & hear ! - I have no objections – Infact it is contribution to make the learned aware of what lies ahead in crude oil prices go through the roof – It is already happening.
I believe there is a good chance of them crossing the 80 $ mark – It will be the biggest economic crisis mankind has ever faced – One world war veteran was telling me – Such prices were unheard during the wars – They said it is day light robbery ! – While the big 3 would still roll out gas guzzlers in the name of ………. ? technical progress & the transition into Hi-breds ? Who is to blame ?
You could ask and put forward this question by saying imagine if all the cars had the simple design change would it make a difference ?

Warm regards,
Sing !!!
_________________________________

1 Purpose; Principle; Advantages; Discussion of Pre-Ignition, "Ping and Detonation"; After-Burning Fuel;
The " Importance of Turbulence " !
The subject of "turbulence, an aid to fuel distribution," is briefly discussed on page 115. The subject of "flame propagation" is briefly given on pages 290 and 301, and on pages 1054, 116 "compression ratio" is discussed. On page SO6 the purpose, principle and advantage of the Ricardo head is briefly discussed. All of these subjects are closely allied with carburetion.
The subjects of turbulence and combustion chamber design are considered of great importance iii engine design and the story of the development of the Ricardo L-head engine design is reprinted below.'
"Ever since the first lazy flame was persuaded to work, man has persistently endeavored ' to speed it up and by so doing, increase its usefulness '.
"While recognizing the importance of flame-speed, engineers have only recently recognized the necessity of precisely controlling the speed of the flame with reference to the speed of their engines.
"Generally the public wants acceleration, so-called "get away," power and economy.
"The usual procedure has been to go to large valves giving heavier charge, increase in compression, and improvements in carburetor design.
"With each step along this line while greater power and acceleration were available, greater economy was not apparent, the knocking tendency of fuels limiting the possible compression.
"After studying the problem we were convinced that the limitation of modern engines was in the combustion chamber, where the real job of converting the energy of the fuel into useful power was accomplished.
"We reviewed the art and reconsidered this well-known fact, that ii, 190(1, Sir Dugald Clerk discovered that when the explosive mixture was in the state of agitation or turbulence the charge

Kdancy

Part two-
burned with great promptness, resulting in higher power and efficiency.
"He proved that the only reason why high speeds were possible with any engine ' was due to turbulence of the mixture'.
Pre-Ignition and "Ping"
There are other features of combustion chambers which limit the useful return from fuels and the pleasure of performance.
"Our engineers began an investigation as to the causes of pre-ignition and ping in an engine burning the present-day gasoline.
`During this research, which extended over a period of years, they evolved the detonation theory now accepted (see footnote 2).
"They discovered the influence of hotspots in the combustion chamber.
"They noted the influence of spark-plug location and the value of multiple-spark plugs.
"They found the influence of firing in a compact combustion chamber.
"They first noted the facts which led to the bouncing-pin and methods of measuring detonation.
"They noted the effects of long flame travel.
"They noted the effect of the combustion chamber in producing greater acceleration of combustion, and they noted the improved carburetion effect of turbulence due to the cylinder walls and mixture temperatures being the donnnating factors in carburetion.
"Then flintily come to the conclusion that the charge must be as compact as possible cued the hate of the flame to the farthest end of the effective combustion chamber as short as is possible.
After-Burning Fuel
"Among the more important phenomena observed in their research on combustion chambers was the effect known as after-burning.
"With the usual forms of combustion chambers there is always an intensely bright flame of great heat passing the exhaust valve and filling the exhaust manifold. Investigators have long known that where the flame from the exhaust reaches out into the air there was combustion continuing too late to contribute power to the piston.
"To be fully effective the flame must contribute its heat to the mixture during the period known as the tinge of explosion; namely, from the moment the spark juleps until the moment of maximum pressure.
"Lying over the wall surfaces and covered with flame, there is ' a stagnant layer of gas ' known by engineers and scientists to exist, in which combustion is never effective.
Fig. 1. (A) Indicates a (lark stagnant layer in a lazy moving ntiytti're approximately 11„ Melt thick, constituting in a combustion chamber between 8 and 12 per cent of the total volume of useful fuel. This layer burns too slowly to contribute its power to the piston before the exhaust valve is open.
Fig. 2. (B) Indicates the practical elimination of this dark, stagnant layer, due to turbulence in a Ricardo head by driving this gas layer out into the body of the flame. Thus the 8 to 12 per cent of otherwise wasted fuel is made to burn in time to contribute power to the piston rather than heat to the exhaust.
Reprinted by permission from booklet, The Ricardo Mead, copyrighted by Waukesha Motor Co., Waukesha, Wis. Ricardo heads have been used since 11123 on all Waukesha engines and are manufactured under U.S. patent No. 1,474,003, owned by above company. Ricardo replacement heads can be obtained from this company for Ford cars, Ford trucks, Fordson tractors, Dodge cars, and Dodge-Uraltam trucks and many other cars.
2 The now accepted theory of detonation is that the knock is due to a secondary explosion caused by an extraordinarily high pressure or compression, due to too long a flame run front the point of ignition to the combustion chamber wall.
Detonation is not a spark knock. About one one-thousandth of a second after the mixture has been ignited, the ' detonation takes place '. Then the pressure in the combustion chamber jumps front a low pressure to a very high pressure. It is this sudden secondary explosion which makes the ping. Elimination of this ping was the initial purpose of the Ricardo head ' which creates turbulence '.

A lot of thinking has gone into it and will be followed by a lot more, sing !!!
___________________________________________

Somender, My letter to Mr Sing on 3-16-2005
I just completed the test on the Hudson flat-head 6-cyl engine. 262 C.I..

The head was milled .030 to true it up and also raise commpression up a bit.The head i used is a 232 cyl head that raises the C.R. up a little. ( dont know how much ) If this head was installed on a 262 or 308 engine and milled .010 or above they will detonate under a slight lug.

The 232 head has your mods. on each chamber and the test is as follows.

FUEL USED----86-87 OCTANE
ELEVATION----3500-4000 FT.
TIMMING----- T.D.C. and 5 degree before,then 10 degree.(eng would kick-back above this )
OUTSIDE ----TEMP----70-75 degree.
STOP and GO STARTS ON MOUNTAIN ROADS.

The engine never would never ping under these conditions,even lugging the engine down to 400 R.P.M. It would slowly pull faster.
CUT IN HEAD
From the edge of cyl.bore 0.9415 (started then went just into the slanted part of chamber)
Half way across,to slant is 0.060 deep
Just at the edge of the slant is 0.092
The width is 0.180.02
Before the mods were performed,this engine would have a ping-rattle that sounded like the head was cracking into.

The mod.is working just fine , no DEATH-RATTLE of any kind just smoother running.

Later in year we will try it on a 308 C.I. engine ( flat-head hudson ) an see if we get the same.
Thanks for your help. HUDSONLY RUDY.
The Turbocharger was installed later in the year on this same engine in the same car,a 1946 Hudson Super Six with a well-worn 1951 262 wide block engine.
The head gasket is still holding the torque with No leaks and running 5-6 lbs of boost under power.
This is my every day driver car and parts chaser and gets a real work out as the miles show it as
It has 17613 on the odometer on the Grooved 232 cyl head and the Turbocharger but, the Turbocharger has been resealed and re-bearinged twice in this modification due to no oil filter to the turbo.
Hope this helps out on some of the questions that were asked of me.
Hudsonly to all Rudy B.

super651

The cylinder head is a 232 cast iron and it has Not been polished or ported. It has silver paint on it to bring out the depth. Has a well used head gasket on it. Wide block head.
Thanks to all. And it is working for me. Rudy B.

RL Chilton

Thank you Rudy and Kerry!

Rudy-

Would be interested in the results if/when you do testing on a 308.

Chris Smith

Rudy, is the picture your final version of the groove? Did you make any of the changes that Sing suggested? Do you think I can benefit from the groove with a stock 54 aluminum head on a 60 over 7x valved 308? Did you cut the groove by hand or were they machined?

super651

Thanks Russell,My lower back problem will keep me from the 308 eng mods.at this time.

super651

Chris, The 232 head has not been off and don't want to change it,it works so good for the No Ping or death-rattle. Mine was machined but,a local friend cut his with a hacksaw blade and he was able to run more timing before Pinging started.(that is the only reason that we locals did it,to get more timing in the engine)
I cannot say it will work on all engines as the Bad-Gas is not blended the same in all parts of this country . My son Rick builds race engines at the MSD.Co and they cut the tops of the pistons and sometimes as many as 3 cuts per piston on the Chev.engines and they have to dyno every one before the go in a race car and that is when they find that the engine will produce more H.P.and Torque with more timing put into the engines.
Thanks to all. Rudy.
Please,keep in mind that, all cylinder heads are Not the same thickness at any point top,or bottom as we found out on a 308 Alum.head,we went into the water passages.

Chris Smith

That's a little scary being the head I will use is a 308 aluminum. Rudy, how do you interpret Sing where he says extend a little deeper towards the plug touching the combustion chamber roof. Do it in steps. Is he saying to make little notched steps in the angled transition part of the chamber or what?

super651

Chris, The Alum.heads are made by Alcoa and another one that I cant remember and Not by Hudson and some of them are not the same thickness at points such as the Floor and that is where you can getinto the water but, it can be welded and redone, We cut up a few cracked iron heads and found them to be the same thickness and not like the Alum.heads.
The grooves are not stepped they are smooth and get deeper as they enter the head chamber.
Look at the bottom pictures of Sings report www.herningg.com/singh/ and you will see a better view of them. (the depth guage we were using did the step thing.
Hope it helps. Rudy