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Performance Cylinder Head


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Hi all, have nearly finished my rebuild 200tdi 110 is on the road so just running it in and sorting the niggles , so have turned my attention to gaining a bit more power from the old girl. I've fitted a bigger intercooler and when I've done a few miles will be adjusting the fuel pump and upping the boost , but I read in another post about performance cylinder head and wondered what it entailed ?   What sort of power gains you get from it ? And is it worth doing ? 

cheers Ian

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Turner Engineering do them.  They claim quite significant performance or economy gains (one or the other, depending on how you drive).  They claim between 10% and 30% improvement across their range, which includes the petrol and normally aspirated engines, so I'd expect it to be towards the lower end with a turbo charged engine.  But combined with a free flowing intercooler and some fuel and boost tweaks, you should get much increased performance.

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Gas flowing, so it's mostly porting, increasing the aperture around the valve stemn and above the seat and smoothing out any burrs, steps and roughness.  The trick is not removing too much material and weakening the walls or grinding through into an oil or water passage, so a knowledge of the thickness of the material and where any thin spots are is somewhat advantageous!

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Cheers  Snagger saw those on Turner engineering and read a post on here were the honitonhobbit mentioned about doing it . So thought I'd ask if it's worth doing and what's involved like reb78 I've got a spare head . 

Cheers Ian

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If you have a spare, then why not?  Just take it easy and remember that it's better to leave more material in than to remove too much, so take it easy inside the main chambers - smoothing rather than enlarging is probably the way to go about it in there, only enlarging the ports to the manifolds (a manifold gasket would be a good guide as to how far to enlarge them, but you'd need to match that on the manifolds too).

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I know what you mean, 2.5 petrol with a trick cam, gas flowed head, tubular exhaust manifold and a nice carb all set up on a rolling road - it wasnt much fun to drive and used a bit more fuel than the low compression v8 I replaced it with.

I know Turner are very reputable but wonder if the claims are subjective from customers or actual dyno measurements, ive known people take clapped engines from competition cars and replace them with mildly tuned engines ( a bit like my example above ) They always report big improvements - strongly suspect they would see similar gains if they just fixed the engine back to standard. something like:

Duff engine 40hp

Standard engine 70hp

tuned engine 77hp

 

 

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I run a 'performance' cylinder head in my 200 Tdi. The work was done for me by a local engine house (Hamlyn's of Bridgwater). I was pleasant surprised by the difference in flexibility and economy; so much so I have not bothered doing much else to tune the vehicle - a little pump tweak and a little wastegate actuator tweak is about it

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Cheers all mixed replies there , did read turners website and to be fair they do say it depends on the condition of your engine and ancillaries it says they've put them in some rally cars so would imagine the figures might have come from there. Did watch wheeler dealers last night they did it on a merc head then the bloke who did it bench tested it by pushing compressed air through it, he'd also tested it before the work and the flow had improved by about 15% was impressed . Sounds like it worked for you  honitonhobbit is it just the head you do or do you do the manifolds as well ? Been trying to find someone local to me in Stafford who does it for a price . Think I might give it ago the engines just been rebuilt .

cheers Ian 

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I'd very much agree with GW8IZR's observation - if you really just rebuild stuff fully and properly (with a TDi that means a full recon of the injection pump too) and get it all set up nicely you can be surprised how lovely it comes out without any trick bits.

That said, if you've got a spare head & want to experiment then go for it - you can make a DIY flow bench to see how well you're doing using an old vacuum cleaner, there was an article in PPC some years ago.

You do have to be a bit wary of doing "tuner stuff" on a Land Rover lump though, what the tuning / racing crowd want and what works nicely in a 2ton brick are very different things. I'd hope a better flowing head wouldn't hurt anything though.

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I had my head off to sort the valve stem seals. I decided to get it checked for true, so dropped down to Hamlyn's. I was chatting to the owner and he said they would true it up, re-grind and re-seat the valves, fit the valve stem seals and port it and gas flow the exhaust; all for 170 notes. No brainer really. SO essentially they simply improved it's flow. The valves did have their profiles changed and their seats to match. It's something the company has done for years, so it's all set up to do it.

Since then I've fitted a replacement OE intercooler, that was cleaned prior to fitting; fitted SMACO hoses; fitted a non dented metal pipe from the turbo and simply massaged the tuning a snadge. I've also tweaked the wastegate actuator so it's showing the correct boost at the correct rpm.

I've had it on the rolling road, really to see where peak torque is. Figures are better than standard and slightly better than a standard TD5

I'm not running a snorkel and won't be; but I will replace the centre box to allow the turbo to spool up faster.

I'm after reliability, economy and slightly more driveability over standard

 

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Yes pump and injectors were overhauled when engine rebuilt I do think turners price for the work is a bit on the high side that's why I'm looking for someone local, the engine runs sweet am pleased with myself as it's the 1st engine I've ever rebuilt . Have fitted a full width intercooler , haven't tweeted the pump or turbo yet as I wanted to do a few miles to run things in, the turbo is only running on 0.75 bar so that needs upping but she goes really well , I'm after the same outcome as honitonhobbit it's a daily driver and I've started going fishing again so it will be in for a lot of miles getting about.

Does anyone have a link to some where that shows some one doing the work themselves ?

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In all fairness, Turners do also bronze line the valve guides I believe. There isn't much you can do with the combustion chamber after all, but the valves have huge seating surfaces, much larger than the actual seats, so would probably benefit from a bit of smoothing out., as it effects flow especially when the valves are not fully open. Also on the 300s(not sure about 200s) the inlet manifold  inlet stub is a huge step in the pipe - that can be smoothed out quite easily. 

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15 hours ago, Cchase said:

Hmmm...I wonder if I should do this with my 2.5 N/A? Nah...68hp is heaps!

Cheers,

Colin

I had the head off to do the gasket on mine so gave it a clean up of the ports, reckon ive got as much as - oh 69 to 70 hp now.

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Lot of talk about BHP, but I guess as hinted above, driveability, torque at low revs, pick up from low/medium revs etc are more likely what folk are interested in.

I recall a long thread some time ago on here that Frida Turner contributed to and they really didnt make any wild claims about their performance heads, more saying that they were subtle improvements that made the vehicle nicer to drive.

I will have a go at it with my spare head when I get some time, but I will really aim to remove burrs and polish I think. Not knowing where the water/oil passages are, i would be nervous to remove anything. Having said that, at the price the HonitonHobbit mentioned above its tempting to drop the head with the company he mentions one day when I am passing....

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There are a few things to keep in mind if your doing your own heads. The main one being if you open the ports and runners out too much you can lose air velocity into the chamber making it worse. The power increase In properly ported heads (although it's better across the board)is often at the top of the rpm range which is no good for heavy brick shaped things. Best thing to do is to match the ports on the head to the inlet manifold with a gasket, remove all the casting flash in the ports and decoke the valve seat. I let ports want to have a coarse finish while exhaust wants to be smooth. If you stick to modest porting like that then the chances of going throwing waterway etc are slim. Hope that helps

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To be honest this was why I let the professionals do it. I ported a few bikes over the years, played with a few four cylinder car heads. But I've had good and bad results. I tend to think it's better to go somewhere that is a bit better at it than me. I've had a fair few 200Tdi over the years. I've had balls out tuned to the max versions and boggo standard. When it comes down to it, its a 2.5litr 4 cylinder turbocharged, intercooled diesel from an era when engines were relatively crude, simple and long lived. If I want to drive quickly I have a selection of A4's to use and one day the Toerag. What I wanted was just a slightly improved version of what I had already

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That's my thinking reb78 have found hamlyns been on there website might contact them see what the price is but would have to post it to them. Have done a few searches this morning and found articles on doing it and how to make a flow bench but why knacker up a perfectly good head. If I remember correctly it has cackshifter it's like part of a disc where the air comes in. I think we all agree a defender is never going to be a sports car if you want to go fast buy a performance car , I think most people are after making it more drivable and at home on modern roads after all I would imagine that helping your old 200tdi to breathe a bit easier can only be good for the engine . I think most of us could do with a bit of oxygen from time to time as we get on :D

Cheers Ian

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