[ogasman]

Hello guys,
Much has been happening with the project, some good, some not so good. It was almost stillborn, Jim Dove was going to pull the plug. A few of the initial buyers started to back away, then some of the others were "interested" but short on funds. Wanted to sell kits on comission?
Bottom line, I am the only game in town now. I have orders for about 20 kits. This means we have lost the deep discount due to the large scale production run. We are looking at $14,500 for the complete kit as it was originally stated, ouch!! The more kits I can sell, the better the price will get. This is the bad.
The good side is that I am calling the shots now. The block is now optional. You can subtract $3000 from the price if you don't want a block. Remember, with a few modifications you can run this kit on any 4 inch bore FE block. The cams will also be an option. A new source for billet cams has come on line. You can get finished cams for $1000 a set. I am adding a primary (short chain) timing set to the kit that will be keyed to the long chain gear. No more slipped timing gears.
The really good news, two different consultants have helped with the casting. I went to Dove's last week, and looked at the raw castings. They look spectacular!! Better than the last set of Edelbrock heads I had! They changed a bunch of little things, all of which added up to major improvements. The castings were not porous, they were contaminated. The bonding agent in the sand was breaking down due to the high heat they were using to get the molds to fill. They were also getting core shift for the same reason. They made a bunch of changes to both the molds, and their casting techniques. They changed the bonding agent they were using, and lowered the pouring temperature. They sectioned up a bunch of blocks, their largest casting, to see their progress. They look great now. I have some pictures of a sectioned cylinder head, if someone will post them for me.
Let me put it into perspective. I talked Jim into casting up some SOHC heads about 5 years ago. They were the first ones he had made since the 1980's. When my set was finished, I went to pick them up in person. They were pretty fugly, with repairs and a rough finish. I passed on buying them. Jim was not too happy with me, Earl was just plain pissed (he runs the phone at Dove). They eventually sold the 10 sets they had made. I let things cool down for about a year, then brought up the idea of making more heads. I pre paid for 2 sets, with the deal that I could look at the entire run and pick the sets I wanted. This batch was better, but still not great. They have made another run since then with more improvement in the castings. I would probably have taken 75% of the last batch. Since the consultants have been there, the new castings blow the old ones away.
I am planning on running a few ads to try to get some more buyers before I place the order. The more kits sold, the better the price. I will post a pricing tier soon. I will probably close the order at the end of January. No waiting to see what happens, If you don't place an order soon you will not get a kit. This is going to be a one time only run. I am trying to get a complete kit up and running on the dyno before then. I will check that everything is perfect before the run of kits starts.
I have been hearing rumors for years about other people doing cammer heads, never seen any yet. There are a lot of tricks in the heads, they are very hard to cast and machine. Dove has all the original molds and tooling to do the job right. If you need a reason to buy a SOHC motor, you better feel for a pulse.

Paul