[GTO-relic]

Originally Posted by Darin Morgan
The only tunnel port head I had anything to do with was that piece of crap Ford came out with because Junior Johnson though it would be a good idea. All I did was port it and flow it and tell them it would never work because the wet flow was total junk. That was 1992 I think. The only Pontiac heads I have ever done where the 455SD heads on Don Kennedy's Super Stocker in 1989.
The push rod through the port idea is just bad bad bad all the way around. It does not work. I told them it was junk then and I will tell them the same thing now. They flow like gain busters so everyone thinks they are cool but they are actually junk.
The stock heads could never be made large enough on the Pontiac and the tunnel port head accomplished that. The wet flow in the standard Pontiac heads of the day was already poor so consequently the engine never showed a difference in that regard but the power went up because of the much needed volume increase. They didn't have the volume flow rate and air speeds of today's competition heads.

old post....please allow me to comment
I've seen this attitude amongst the top echelons of professional racing. the problem is, they think the type of racing they're involved in, is the only one on the planet. correct me if I'm wrong, Morgan is primarily involved with drag racing.
the tunnel port design has been around since the 1960's on the Ford 427 FE side oiler racing engine. it went head to head against the vaunted 426 Hemi in NASCAR, and beat the hemi. 427 tunnel port powered Fords won both the 1966 and 1967 Daytona 500. with the pushrod guide in the ports. against the best Hemi engines of the time. explain that.
Mario Andretti won 1967, and Cale Yarborough won 1968. With tunnel port 427 engines, with pushrods through intake ports. no airfoils.
furthermore, ALL Ford FE engines have the pushrods in the intake ports. even the high riser, lower riser, medium riser. because the pushrods are cast into the intake manifold on that engine design. the engine doesn't know or care what you have in the intake ports. as long as enough air and fuel get into the cylinder.
that is the same engine that AJ Foyt and Dan Gurney dominated the 1967 LeMans 24 hour race with, and defeated all the Ferraris with. a 427 Ford.
428 Ford FE engines dominated a few upper classes of SuperStock racing, in the Mustang. those also have pushrods through the intake ports.
every single modern 4 valve engine, has a divider in the middle of the intake ports, splitting the flow to the 2 separate intake valves.
what's Darin Morgan have to say about that ? he's compartmentalized into one type of racing, and is oblivious to what the rest of the world is doing,
and also to automotive and racing history. he's amongst the best at his class of racing...but that's not ALL racing.
the cool factor is the ORIGINAL Ram Air V cylinder heads on your own car. they only made around 200 pairs of heads at Pontiac.
it takes a lot of work, money, expertise, patience to just find those original heads, and put together a running engine with them, and the supporting parts.
the aftermarket RA V heads, are a convenient alternative that just any consumer can buy much more easily, because they are actually available from vendors.
all the original RA V parts are privately owned, and jealously hoarded. the owner may not sell them to you, just because he didn't like the tone of your voice,
or he got up on the wrong side of the bed that day. so it's an entire different experience finding, buying, building an original.
the Pontiac V8 was so severely under-ported to begin with, the RA V head could not help but improve it, regardless of its design quirks.
having said that, the Ram Air IV heads will outflow the Ram Air V heads up to .500" lift in stock form.
at .500" lift the Ram Air V starts to pull away, by 20cfm.
the Ram Air IV 614 head will flat line at .400" lift and flow 250cfm with a good valve job, and stay at 250cfm all the way to .600" lift.
The Ram Air V head will flow 270cfm at .500" lift, and continue to increase up to 320cfm at .800" lift.
The RA 5 exhaust port will flow 202cfm at .800" lift. It was a racing head designed in the 1960's for use with high compression, high lift cams, high rpm.
considering Ford's achievements with the design, how bad can it be. sure, it's not CUTTING EDGE 2022 Pro Stock level.
that is .1% of the entire motorsports industry. what about the other 99.9%
most people aren't into Pro Stock, and don't want to be, for a good reason. considering what's happening to NHRA lately,
who'd want to be ? they're selling off their own tracks and collapsing before our eyes.
at this point we are building NOSTALGIA MOTORS. a new Tesla electric race car would whip most gas engined cars.
the V8 piston engine is not exactly cutting edge technology anymore. let's admit that.