I'm a pretty young guy, and flatheads for the most part were disappearing
from the scene around the time I was born. But the story that I've heard
was that Zora Duntov developed the heads as a bolt on conversion to increase
the flatheads power output. It seems that in New York City, the dump trucks
used to haul trash were severly underpowered when fully laden. In order to
improve the HP output for the trucks, without replacing the engines, Duntov
worked with Ford to develop these heads. The name ARDUN, as I've been told,
comes from Zora's name, zora ARgus DUNtov. Correct me if I'm wrong Doug,
cause you're obviously the Ardun authority in here.
regards
Darrell Ferguson
BLACK RADON ENGINEERING
# 939 BBFALT
http://my.cybersoup.com/blackradon
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ARDUNDOUG@aol.com [SMTP:ARDUNDOUG@aol.com]
> Sent: Thursday, June 24, 1999 1:20 PM
> To: dahlgren@uconect.net; land-speed@autox.team.net
> Subject: Re: Ardun History
>
> Dave,
> The Ardun would have naturally helped the old Flathead at altitude,
> as it breathed much better than the sidevalve. That's the first I've heard
> of
> the theory that they were designed for use at high altitude.
> The Duntov Bros. didn't do enough R&D on the heads, however, and in
> their stock state they wouldn't produce anywhere near the 170 HP that was
> advertised. Using stock Ford pistons, as the Ardun was intended to be a
> "bolt-on" horsepower increase, the resulting compression was about 6:1.
> Subsequent owners of the rights to the conversions offered pistons to
> dramatically raise the compression ratio.
> The single 2-bbl Stromberg 97 mounted on a crossover between the
> stock log manifolds couldn't handle adjacent cylinders firing one after
> the
> other, starving each other for fuel.
> In the 1950's, Don Clark & Clem TeBow (C&T Automotive) acquired a
> set
> and really got the potential out of them by some port massaging,
> compression
> raising, and fuel injection innovation.
> In 1992 we got a 50% increase in cylinder head flow by moving the
> ports and re shaping the bowls..............Ardun Doug
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