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I have a friend that has an aluminum foundry. He is interested in casting a run of finned aluminum heads for the post war L8 engines (288, 327, 359). I do not have a lot of details cost, turn around time, or how many he would need to do a run. But is anyone is seriously interested let me know he is estimating the cost to be below $2000. We are just putting feelers to see if it would be a viable option.

You might do better reproducing the Prewar HC heads for the V-12 and Senior Eights.

Those motors benefit from the higher compression and aluminum by running cooler. Especially the V-12 which has the thermal efficiency of a mobile furnace. As well, most of the original heads are shot.

While you are at it, reproduction oil pump housings might sell well for all makes of cars given those old pumps are all shot. But that would require doing cast iron.

This is a performance application not a reproduction part deal. Reproducing prewar V12 parts would be even ore of a niche market than the later L8s. Casting cast iron is not an option.

I'm sorry I commented. High performance Packard 8 is a pretty absurd notion and nobody is going to buy one.

No more absurd than a flat head ford only those have aftermarket support. In today's world it is quite easy to make respectable horsepower out of any engine the Packard 8 is no exception. Mine for instance will be high performance and we are offering parts for those who want more power and effency from theirs.

There has been some discussion of hopping up the Packard straight eight. Several people have talked about buying high compression aluminum heads but I don't know how many would shell out $2000.

My guess is you would be lucky to sell 10 a year.

Somebody in Texas was supposed to be making heads for Packard eight and V12 engines but I don't think they ever delivered any. Whether it was a scam or they bit off more than they could chew, I couldn't say.

I will be sending him one of my spare iron heads so he can do some 3D modeling off of then and make the needed adjustments to go from cast iron to aluminum. He is expecting very small numbers, but he likes taking on unique projects and has done wome work with the V12 Lincoln engines as well as L8 Pontiacs. He has a tentative price set the price set between 1200-1500. In my opinion that is not to shabby it is on par with a set of aftermarket heads for a more conventional engine (though they are more complex). It seems that he is OK with a small run something like half a dozen heads or so.

I would be interested in the Aluminum head as I have two, but they are the 356ci.
Gary

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This attitude is why nothing ever gets made for Packard. If you want the packard hobby to exist after your generation, you'd better HOPE some performance parts become available. Otherwise the only parkcards left will be non runners in museums.

Are the aluminum V8 heads next
You could add Singh grooves the the flat head though.