B head or Lion III head?

gilitos

gilitos

Senior Member
I'm in the final assembly of my motor rebuilt by Herm Kohnke that includes a Burlington crank and a Stipe IB330 camshaft. It's beautiful. Now for the $64 question. I have to choose the head to put on it. As you can see from the picture, my choices are a large B police head (freshly skimmed to ensure flatness) or a Lion III from Charlie Yapp. I've attached the most relevant dyno information I could find from Piranio's website as a means of comparison. Look like the B head and Stipe cam should be good for close to 50 HP. Don't know what the extra compression of the Lion III would give. Here's what I see as pros and cons of the two heads:

Ford police head pros: OEM Ford (i.e. original), looks good, easy on the bearings?
Ford police head cons: not so much power? Is this a con?

Lion III pros: More power
Lion III cons: Looks a bit radical for my taste, hard on starter when motor is hot

Sure would like to hear your opinions and experiences!

Giles
 

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gilitos said:
I'm in the final assembly of my motor rebuilt by Herm Kohnke that includes a Burlington crank and a Stipe IB330 camshaft. It's beautiful. Now for the $64 question. I have to choose the head to put on it. As you can see from the picture, my choices are a large B police head (freshly skimmed to ensure flatness) or a Lion III from Charlie Yapp. I've attached the most relevant dyno information I could find from Piranio's website as a means of comparison. Look like the B head and Stipe cam should be good for close to 50 HP. Don't know what the extra compression of the Lion III would give. Here's what I see as pros and cons of the two heads:

Ford police head pros: OEM Ford (i.e. original), looks good, easy on the bearings?
Ford police head cons: not so much power? Is this a con?

Lion III pros: More power
Lion III cons: Looks a bit radical for my taste, hard on starter when motor is hot

Sure would like to hear your opinions and experiences!

Giles
Click to expand...
I know where you're coming from, because I was at this point in 2001. I studied and read, went to all the info, read again , over and over. had stock 31 tudor and wanted a car I could go across america with my wife and grandkids and make it easy on my car and engine. 2002 came around and decided I would put my car in the GREAT RACE, I was a truck driver that had been everywhere and I wanted kids to experience what the UNITED STATES looked like on the less traveled roads. My first decision was to have inserted engine and that was decided to be from my home town area of DALLAS,TX and it would be RON KELLEY, he had a back log of about 2 years. I decided on what I wanted in the engine because thru the years things are always changing. What is the big thing now isn't the big thing tomorrow. I read for about 3 years on good and not so good. after the waiting time for RON I started asking questions about inserted engine builders and I was always asking people from home state of TEXAS, the number one name that was always comming up was PETES in ALB, NM. Truth be known now that Pete and his son JOHN COSPER were one of the first people to begin doing inserted engines, back in the 80's. Yes they are OLD SCHOOL started all this out and now not that big of a name , but to me they are THE SHADOW BUILDERS not really talked about but their there the older guys that were touring in the late 70's and early 80's know of them , their names have just moved to the back burnner. OUT OF SIGHT, OUT OF MIND. I have over 57,000 miles on my engine and it gets better every day. read my avatar for extra scoop. have fun modelAtony tony white Lafayette,LA
 
I would say the B head. The lion head will be a higher compression, but they don't breath as well as the other heads at higher rpm. That's my simple answer for that. Your bearings will appreciate the B head better too.
 
If you want a moderately higher comp. and stock looks, what about a Snyders 5.5? I don't own any HC heads but would consider that an option. JMHO
 
I installed a Lion head with breathing improved by Piranio's. It replaced a Thomas head. Performance improvement was impressive as compared to the Thomas. Zero to 50 acceleration was reduced by 1 second.

On the negative side-the water pump impeller clearance was not as good as standard Model A heads. I could run 50/50 antifreeze before with NO overheating at idle or on the road. I had to reduce the antifreeze to 30% to get acceptable cooling performance. The 50/50 antifreeze is significantly more viscous as compared to the 30%.
 
The Snyder HC heads also look almost exactly like stock ones, as well as perform very well for many users.
 
I believe that the performance difference between the Snyder head (5.5 or 6:1) and the B police head (originally 5.2:1; after 80 years and a few millings who knows?) would be minimal. I believe the Snyder head is essentially a copy of the police head: same heart shaped combustion chambers.
 
gilitos said:
Here's what I see as pros and cons of the two heads:

Ford police head pros: OEM Ford (i.e. original), looks good, easy on the bearings?
Ford police head cons: not so much power? Is this a con?

Lion III pros: More power
Lion III cons: Looks a bit radical for my taste, hard on starter when motor is hot

Sure would like to hear your opinions and experiences!

Giles
Click to expand...

Are you looking for power and if so how much and will you need it for your usage?

If you are looking at more power just for power sake and have no use for it like "highway" speeds or climbing long steep grades, I would go for look over function since function is not needed. JMHO
 
I installed the police head and have about 100 miles on it, and I dig it. A lot. Around 35 mph in 3rd, an invisible hand starts pushing real hard on the rear spare tire carrier: the increased torque is really noticeable (look at the curves in my original post: you can really feel it). Will the Lion III be worth installing? I had it on briefly before, and when hot my starter couldn't deal with the compressions and I had to roll start it.
 
With a 12v system the starter just flies with the lion head. In fact, even with the 12v field coils, the starter turns the engine over faster than the slow idle speed. Also, the lion head provides a very nice idle. (Surprisingly)
 
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