Would anyone know the reasoning behind Trick Flow's LT1 head designed with such tiny oil drain back holes?

There must be some logic or reasoning behind it.

What worries me is if one were to road race/autocross wouldn't there be a great amount of oil stranded up in the head? (I'm not worried at all for a drag race application).

Has anyone opened up the holes? Can they or should they be hogged out?

Any road racers on the forum here that run TFS LT1 heads?

Thanks,
Karl Ellwein

 

Might wanna talk to Lloyd.

eportworks.com

 

Lloyds comments would be very welcome. That's why I posted here to see if I could get some public discussion going.

So what do you think?

karl

 

Tiny in reguards to how they are stock? They will do the job.

Karl you might also want to look at where those holes drain back too on the deck surface of the block! That would be more of a concern to me.

Bret

 

Thanks Bret,
That's what I wondering......if the holes were big enough to get the heads drained for a road racer. Glad you mentioned about where the hole might meet the head instead of the open valey.
I never checked any of that. I just went out and checked my head on the engine and can't see even with a flashlight but I stuck a ziptie in the drain hole and it moves feely and pokes through to the valley.


So I'm guessing Trick flow made the hole tiny, (compared to stock), on purpose to hold a bit more oil up there for spring cooling?


Any Fbody LT1 road racers out here with TFS heads?

Karl Ellwein

 

You should check those on a block without the intake on and check all 4 drains... you might be suprised.

Bret

 

I have a set headed my way from LE right now and I'm certainly going to check this very carefully, (because it's not for my motor but for a customer).

So Bret, have you seen some problems? My TFS heads are on the block and in my race car right now, (the ones I am planning to send to you after Indy). It's a drag race only set up so if my drain back is lacking then I can live with it a 1/4 mile at a time. But the ones for my road racing engine customer need to be perfect.

I'm suprised there are not other TFS head owners commenting in this thread?

Here is a link to a photo of my TFS head and it shows one of the itty bitty oil return holes.
I know the underside/deck surface has a shallow trench sort of shape for that oil hole to access the lifter valley.

 

There is not a whole hell of a lot of oil up there and the holes are plenty big for the oil that goes thru them. The deal I was talking about is where they come out on the block.... that's more of a issue than the heads drainback.

Bret

 

I had to grind a channel to get the oil returns to work properly with my AFR's.

You should also mock up the heads on the block with the head gasket in place and see if the head gasket itself blocks off the return holes. I had to snip my head gasket to allow the oil returns to work properly in addition to the channel I cut in the block.

 

I have been running my TF heads for about 6 months on the street and about 40 passes at the track w/o any problems. I did run the engine with the valvecovers off and I noticed there was not alot of oil slinging going on while idling. I just installed the heads like I got them from Lloyd. They do work great so far. Later Clint