[Anthony]

He designed the runners to be siamesed for temperature reasons, as they shared a common wall between them both in the intake and the beginning aspect of the head, it kept the incoming charge cooler and denser. The intake ports were also designed to have as short as possible runners for better high rpm flow. The exhaust ports were I believe again designed separate / symmetrical for heat reasons/dissapation. With siamesed intake, and separate/symmetrical exhausts, you end up with slightly different intake port configurations, which flow slightly differently, which is the most impolrtant factor, but the designer said if they would have known that in 1964, they would have designed the head with symmetrical intake ports. He designed the slightly canted valves to get better flow than the standard in line valve arrangement, but without the heavy production/machining costs of a true hemi head, as the engine had to be a production engine to go NASCAR racing. Interesting story.


Ford saw the success with this head design, and copied it for their Boss 302/351C, and 429/460 head design, but with symmetrical intake port design. I believe Ford also copied the short skirt design of the chevy engine for their new BB. In my eyes, the BBF is Ford's version of the BBC.

I know chevy and Smokey experimented with canted valve heads for the SBC, but they did not make more power unless they were at high rpms, thus were never made as production engine. However, NASCAR has encouraged the design of canted heads for the SBC and SBF engines for high rpm breathing.