I have a Faro arm and plan on scanning the block, head and gasket as well as other parts to put together a 3D model of the engine with three blocks and 4 848 heads that I can scan.
I went down this rabbit hole about a dozen years ago so I'll share where it led me. I had the ways and means to investigate improvements to the head and set about to digitized and cut up several. I figured comparing McGurks mods to a stock head would be a good place to start. All my expertise is in metalcutting so I beat the bushes at the local race engine builders to locate a flow bench and someone who knew how to use it. This led me to a fellow machinist who did a great deal of port work and was interested in my project. Even an adapter plate to mount the head to the flow bench had it's challenges. I'll briefly summarize results:
1. He told me opening the ports from the side to the intersection was detrimental as it reduced velocity.
2. The exhaust ports are very restrictive and there's not much that can be done other than basic smoothing.
3. There's a bump in the combustion chamber wall that shrouds the exhaust valve...removing it helps a bit.
4. Reworking the short side turn (1/8" radius), bowl and guide shaping, bigger valves, blah, blah, blah, are all of limited benefit due to #5
5. Nothing would improve flow substantially due to the "T" shape of the port even when he tried clay wedges, bumps, etc. that would be impossible to mount in the port anyway.
6.In conclusion it was a dead end and we reached the same conclusion others have... throw the tractor head in the bush and start from scratch.
