ShopTalk Forums | Aircooled VW Tech & Restoration Help

Ok. I've trawled through several posts that slate these heads and the company at large, but most stem from before 2005.
I've found one or two posts that have stated that his quality has improved loads and that they are actually good heads.
given the choice, of buying new, they are not that much cheaper than CB so would just buy CB, but I've been offered some MoFoCo Heads, brand new unused for probably half that. So given that the site blurb would insinuate they have a decent if not comparable spec to CB MiniD heads, it's worth a punt.

But has anyone had any RECENT experience with the company and the quality of the heads?

I am im the middle of a slow build with a pair of Mofoco heads.
Like you, I got these heads unused and discounted.
I found the casting quality to be pretty good, but since I have the 040 heads I needed to do some hand work to them.
Basic porting and most importantly clearing the casting flash from the cooling passages.
And the valve leepers were touching on both sides.
Roy at Mofoco was very helpful in getting the information to put any concerns to rest, with all of the flack that happened waybackwhen, I was impressed with how he has stepped up and has been taking care of customers.
If he does not come along in this thread shortly, I will pm his email address, so that you can discuss directly with him.

helowrench wrote:I am im the middle of a slow build with a pair of Mofoco heads.
Like you, I got these heads unused and discounted.
I found the casting quality to be pretty good, but since I have the 040 heads I needed to do some hand work to them.
Basic porting and most importantly clearing the casting flash from the cooling passages.
And the valve leepers were touching on both sides.
Roy at Mofoco was very helpful in getting the information to put any concerns to rest, with all of the flack that happened waybackwhen, I was impressed with how he has stepped up and has been taking care of customers.
If he does not come along in this thread shortly, I will pm his email address, so that you can discuss directly with him.

Thank you. I guess the 040 and 050 head should be cast the same way so if you are confident with the quality, the 050 should be no different. It certainly does seem that the flack was from back before 2005. All the bad stuff I find is that old, but not a lot stating that it's better now. How would i know really if my heads are from the "Bad Era" or the Good era? (if there is such a thing.)
What do you mean by Valve Leepers?

I'm hoping that they will be good as I guess the point is, if they are then I've saved a bucket load and will certainly endorse them. But if they don't seem to be what I need, I'm gonna have to try and sell them to someone... and buy the CB heads.

I have ended up with them as a result of buying up a bulk load of stuff that someone else was collecting to build a 2276, and It primarily interested me as he has a Brand New CB clearanced Ally case, and some brand new Weber IDA 48s. And the heads too.

I meant valve keepers. Fat thumbs.
I will shoot you a pm tonight with Roys email.

stevepugh wrote: Thank you. I guess the 040 and 050 head should be cast the same way so if you are confident with the quality, the 050 should be no different. It certainly does seem that the flack was from back before 2005. All the bad stuff I find is that old, but not a lot stating that it's better now. How would i know really if my heads are from the "Bad Era" or the Good era? (if there is such a thing.)


I have ended up with them as a result of buying up a bulk load of stuff that someone else was collecting to build a 2276, and It primarily interested me as he has a Brand New CB clearanced Ally case, and some brand new Weber IDA 48s. And the heads too.

Check your PMs for Roy's email address.

as to the castings, I believe that Mofoco uses the same foundry in the US for all of the castings, I work with castings in aviation on a daily basis, and I spend a lot of time looking for defects in them. I see no obvious flaws, and cannot see any obvious porosity issues.

Yep, similar story, I got my heads with an unbuilt 1776 collection of parts.
I am not using the cast crank that he had purchased, and am bumping a small stroke with the forged crank.
My heads are my biggest limitations, and should make the 1955cc engine that I have collected parts for into a nice dependable daily driver.
This is for my wife's car, so all out HP is not really the focus.
Dependable, fun, easy to drive, and dependable, those are the concerns.

Rob

I have a few issues with the 050 heads, that I am not happy about. The fin castings are not clear on the innner sections around the intake ports. At first I thought it might be casting flash, but it looks like the casting is not perfect there. I was able to file through the flash in a few areas, but in some it seems that the lower part of the fin doesn't align with the upper parts, and makes getting through the space that should be open difficult. For the price you shouldn't have to mess around with it at all, and the web site claims the number of fins as an asset. The other issue is that the head is cast with an .050" deep step around the circumference. After you add .040" for piston clearance you have .090" total from piston to the head, which is not ideal for combustion. .040-.060 would be much better, and net better torque and lower temps. If you cut out the step then you only have a 40-some cc chamber, which is too small. These may not be issues for you, at least the step. But the fins do need to be open all of the way through for the head to cool to their best. Especially as the larger deck height can raise temps a bit.

If the .050" step is bore sized, set deck as needed vs. the head, pretend the sealing surface is there.
.050" is a perfectly reasonable deck for a long life///don't wanna ever jack with it motor.
Positive deck (vs cylinder) is also doable if you want a tad less.

If the step ID isn't bore sized, make it so.

Piledriver wrote:If the .050" step is bore sized, set deck as needed vs. the head, pretend the sealing surface is there.
.050" is a perfectly reasonable deck for a long life///don't wanna ever jack with it motor.
Positive deck (vs cylinder) is also doable if you want a tad less.

If the step ID isn't bore sized, make it so.

The step isn't bore sized, it's under. If you machine it larger to match, there's no way to account for the side to side play of the cylinder in the head. If the head was torqued and the cylinder wasn't perfectly centered the piston could still hit the corner of the step. Oh, and the volume added by the step is figured into mofoco's chamber volume. Which is not how I figured my engine calculations when setting up this engine.

How much cylinder to head side to side freedom do you have?
The required clearance is maybe .007"-.010" ish.

Seems to me tightening that up would be relatively easy.
(knurl, shim whatever)

Side clearance measured out at .008, even if I machine the step to match my bore size and shim the cylinder to stay centered in the head, I still have .09 deck height which is .04-.05 more than I want. Not sure what I'm going to do about it. This was not expected, which is why I brought it up.

Measurements with no head or base gaskets?

Deck the case, trim the jugs, or have the heads flycut to set desired deck.
A lot of used and even new cases could benefit from being decked properly.

Some folks set up with longer rods just so they can add base shims to get deck right, cheaper.

Running a bit o/t, but to clarify..
I have a decked case, 84 crank, 5.5" rods. I had custom shims ground to get 0 deck height. This when calculated with an .040 coper spacer at the top, and a 53cc chamber landed me right at 10:1, perfect!
But as received, I find that my 53cc chamber has the step, so even though my compression is 10:1, my quench space/ clearance has grown from .040 to .090" because of the added .050".
It would be a non issue, however I spent very good money on a great porsche journal crankshaft, and carrillo rods. This combo should be solid enough to run very tight clearance, I do not want to leave any extra space.

I will be machining the step back to match the cylinder ID, then running slightly + deck height to achieve desired squish.
To bring my CR down, the chambers in the heads will be opened up, focusing on unshrouding the valves, until the CR comes down to the acceptable level.

I sympathize, I unexpectedly got a set of T4 heads with the step cut in that required some massaging.

I needed to deck the case anyway, ended up at zero deck (to jugs) and .035" deck to head, courtesy of the step.
Fortunately the CR worked out as desired in the end, just cost another $100 for the decking.
(no head gaskets)

It sounds like you are going to have to open up your chambers or dish your pistons once you fix your deck.

Look on the bright side--- I ended up with a set of semi-hemi cut heads without thinking about it.
Took a set of custom JEs with matching cone shaped dome to fix that.
(fortunately those cost the same to me in the end)

In the end it looks like it will work far better than I ever would have expected.

Just to update: Roy has seen the writing on the wall, and offered the same 050 heads without the step, and a 54cc chamber. Alas, $50 per head more for this option. I am trading my stepped heads back to him, plus $100 for the new heads, and hoping that I'm going to end up with something decent this time around. In the meantime, I've ordered a set of Steve Tims stage 2 heads for my build, as I can't wait any longer for this engine. The Mofoco's will sit on the shelf waiting for a use, or find their way to the classifieds..