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Pallet of D0VE heads

JR4X

JR4X

wheeler
race
Joined
May 20, 2020
Member Number
445
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Farmington NM
This post is several years in the making and I’m too excited not to share. Brothers and I scored a pallet of D0VE (knock off) heads that contains 15 D0VE’s and 4 ELIM 1 heads (whatever TF that is). Nothing is for sale, not sure yet if any of them are even usable. Just gotta share a pic with any potential Ferd fans that may even know what a D0VE head is.

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Correct me if im wrong, but never seen a D0ve head that didnt come with pressed in rocker studs?
 
Way cool. Had a set or two over the years and let them get away. Isn't it easy enough to tap them for screw in studs? Its been too long, can't remember.

Interesting that they are green. Old .gov surplus?
 
bdkw1 said:
So, 70's tech cast iron boat anchors.

There so much better options available now I'm not sure why you would want to screw with those. I've scrapped probably a dozen of those.
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You mean big open ports based on 70’s pre smog tech? and For free? Way to rain on the parade shit heel
 
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TrikeKid said:
450-500hp with a little die grinder work is dumb. We're all clowns unless we buy Kasses or Trick Flows
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Yeah for $2k a piece or more :shaking:

Apparently bdkw1 throws away thousand dollar bills. I don’t see a set of D0VE heads for sale anywhere for less than a grand but he’s throwing them away.

Or he’s full of shit and doesn’t know wtf he’s talking about. I’m going to go with the latter.
 
8 truck I prepped had them on the motors that came with it. Both motors were roached. Ended up tossing both after I got tired of looking at them. That's 4 right there. Buddy deals in classic Ford parts. He has parted out probably over 100 late 60's early 70's cars. The 429's/460's weren't worth anything, they all went to the scrappers. There's no telling how many we carted off from that.

Chambers on them aren't great, ports are large but not that great of shape. Porting a cast iron head is something I will never do agian when an as cast aftermarket head will out perform a DOVE head no matter what's done to it. Not to mention you can run more compression on an aluminum head. And the weight savings.

Buy the time you do the seats, new valves, spring, retainers, Port work, the price difference isn't that great. Unless you count your time spent as free.
 
Too bad you didn't score that pallet about 6mo ago when I was dropping $500 on an aftermarket aluminum head and a few hundo on valvetrain for the Mercruiser.

I'd have loved to just use a boring OEM head with boring OEM valvetrain.

Can you post pics of the ports and chamber on the ELIM head? (FYI It's probably E1IM)?
 
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arse_sidewards said:
Too bad you didn't score that pallet about 6mo ago when I was dropping $500 on an aftermarket aluminum head and a few hundo on valvetrain for the Mercruiser.

I'd have loved to just use a boring OEM head with boring OEM valvetrain.

Can you post pics of the ports and chamber on the ELIM head? (FYI It's probably E1IM)?
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No, it’s ELIM 1. And they are boat anchors. Still not smog heads but the ports are cast half shut.

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I don’t know if there’s anything salvageable yet. You see how they’re stacked on the pallet, that can’t mean good things for the deck face.
 
A lot of guys that port these heads extensively i have seen build up the floor of exh port like that. From what i understand it just creates turbulence and most of the work is done in top side and short turn. Thats pretty cool never seen those, would be interesting to see the rest of the chambers/ports. Can you tell if they have the smaller 1.5" exhaust valves necked down like E6te heads?


I contest that D0ves are boat anchors, nor c8's and c9's. They are the camel humps of BBF's:flipoff2:
 
Levigarrett76 said:
A lot of guys that port these heads extensively i have seen build up the floor of exh port like that. From what i understand it just creates turbulence and most of the work is done in top side and short turn. Thats pretty cool never seen those, would be interesting to see the rest of the chambers/ports. Can you tell if they have the smaller 1.5" exhaust valves necked down like E6te heads?


I contest that D0ves are boat anchors, nor c8's and c9's. They are the camel humps of BBF's:flipoff2:
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That picture is exhaust port on the left side and intake on the right. The floor of the intake port is cast reduced port as well. No idea what they’d be for or where they came from.
 
JR4X said:
I don’t know if there’s anything salvageable yet. You see how they’re stacked on the pallet, that can’t mean good things for the deck face.
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Meh, easy peasy to knock a couple thou off the deck of a bare head.

JR4X said:
That picture is exhaust port on the left side and intake on the right. The floor of the intake port is cast reduced port as well. No idea what they’d be for or where they came from.
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Low(er) speed high torque stuff.

You don't need that extra volume. You want a perfect "column of air" taking the nicest path it can to the valve. Having unecessary volume acts kinda like an exhaust resonator.
 
Can I get chamber pics of the ELIM head? Preferably with approx valve diameters and approx chamber depth.

I might be really interested in that head for my own shit.

Is it just one or a pair?

If it's a single you should definitely sent it to me for disposal since nobody building a 460 wants a single. :flipoff2:
 
Cool!
I think between some random thunderjet my dad bought off of craigslist for $400 and the stock engine in the 70 ranchero we have 2 sets of them. Don't know if we'll ever get around to using them but at least if we don't we'll pass them along to someone who will instead of throwing them away :stirthepot:
 
arse_sidewards said:
I'd have loved to just use a boring OEM head with boring OEM valvetrain.
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Might have to bring that idea up to dad. He has aspirations about doing basically what you are to his 470 and sticking it in a willys pickup or something for a crawler. Seems like there's a ton of effort involved in using an aluminum head though so maybe it's be worth his time to warm over the D0VE ports and throw one of those on it
 
arse_sidewards said:
Meh, easy peasy to knock a couple thou off the deck of a bare head.


Low(er) speed high torque stuff.

You don't need that extra volume. You want a perfect "column of air" taking the nicest path it can to the valve. Having unecessary volume acts kinda like an exhaust resonator.
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I’ll get pics when I can.

low speed high torque was the game. The engines these were on had a max of 2000 rpm but meant to run 24 hours a day sipping on nat gas for fuel.
 
JR4X said:
I’ll get pics when I can.

low speed high torque was the game. The engines these were on had a max of 2000 rpm but meant to run 24 hours a day sipping on nat gas for fuel.
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My 99 model propane 460 had e6te's with full sized ports (no infill) but tiny exhaust valves where the seat hung over into the bowl. Casting was on back side of head

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willis_racing said:
Might have to bring that idea up to dad. He has aspirations about doing basically what you are to his 470 and sticking it in a willys pickup or something for a crawler. Seems like there's a ton of effort involved in using an aluminum head though so maybe it's be worth his time to warm over the D0VE ports and throw one of those on it
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Eh, I don't think an iron head is saving you as much time as you think. It's saving you money but only if you go with all used OEM valvetrain.

It's basically zero effort and tons of expense to throw a $500 Speedmaster head on there.

You can't buy an OEM aluminum head so unless you happen to have a valvetrain from the high performance 4bbl Cleveland lying around (the cheaper aftermarket 460 heads all use valve/guide/spring/retainer dimensions for that application) you wind up having to buy all aftermarket valve and spring shit.

Then you have to buy studs and rockers and guide-plates and shit. Then you need a tall valvecover to clear the shit...

Granted I would have to had to have bought all that shit regardless because all my 470s/3.7s came to me as rusted up non-running cores. OEM still would have been the cheaper route though and I have my doubts about the longevity of aftermarket springs, roller rockers and pushrods/guide plates vs the lower performing but much simpler stamped OEM stuff.

These engines are kind of spicy in the cam/dynamic compression department from the factory so for car use (can't lug a boat) so the wisdom is that they really benefit from the extra margin that aluminum affords there.

I made mine harder than it had to be by insisting on tool room precision for the deck and head surfaces and then being a cheapskate and using John Deere head bolts instead of just forking out for ARP studs that would have worked (the cheap Speedmaster ones don't).
 
Dont the speed masters/procomp/chyna pretty much need a valve & spring job out of the box?
 
Taken from my mud truck racing guy.

These are valuable because you can't have aluminum heads for stock class specifications. They like the dove heads because they can be worked and a magnet sticks to them.

My understanding.
 
TrikeKid said:
Most assembled heads do. Better to buy them bare and assemble what you need instead of paying for a bunch of shit that probably won't work for you anyway
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It's way easier to have parts that are just barely outside their happy zone with assembled heads because people call it "good enough" when in reality they need a little more spring or something. I think this account for a lot of the "and 6mo later I had the heads off" stories.

Luckily I wasn't buying a pair and I am a cheapskate so there was no opportunity for me to make that mistake. :flipoff2:

If my valve springs that are really pushing it in terms of how soft they are fuck off then I'll only have myself to blame. :laughing:
 
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