The Big BOSS

These heads were originally developed in early 1970, as the next phase of my BOSS Pro/Stock program. To the best of my knowledge, these exhaust ports were the first designed to create supersonic flow. They provided the basis of the "super critical" area rule formulas that I still use today. These heads were also the original pieces to have swirl inducing inlet ports and swirl creative combustion chambers.

The designs were revised in 1983 to provide the power necessary to run a Pro/Stock T-Bird at performance levels that nobody ever imagined possible. They were part of an amazing technological program that has, in many respects, never been duplicated since.

As the original Ford BOSS castings were both scarce and fragile, the new BOSS 429 heads produced by AR Inc. provided the foundation for these (still) unique cylinder heads. The original pair started as the AR components shown in the pictures and were reconfigured by welding and CNC machining the heat treated castings.

The intake ports were huge and we welded them to reduce cross section and to create the high velocity inlet bias necessary for introducing swirl to the cylinders. The combustion chambers were also welded into shape that forced rotation prior to and during combustion.

Ford took the heads seriously enough to provide a part number in their catalog. The original intent was to modify the casting process to allow the heads to have enough "meat" to machine the new shapes and to provide revised cooling as well. The head package in the Ford catalog was to have cost $10,000.00 complete. The entire venture went away after we sold Bob Glidden several engines in the winter of 1984. Bob ran our combination for the first time at the 1985 WinterNationals and destroyed every national record in the class (letting of the throttle at 1000 ft.) in his rout of the class.

When Bob suddenly realized what he had, and that the combination would be available to anyone with $10K, he immediately went to Ford and killed the program. Bob went on to dominate the class for 5 years (winning 5 straight championships) in a cake-walk. He had no competition until we (ENDYN) designed the Chrysler B-1 TS "Intermediate" heads, which propelled the Dodge team to 2 convincing championships. When Bob suddenly needed help, we elected not to participate any longer and he quickly learned that "conventional" technology did not work with the Super Swirl heads. Bob spent his considerable fortune "trying" and he is now retired in Indiana.

(BTW, as dominate as Warren Johnson has been in Pro-Stock in the past few years, Bob Glidden is still the all time winner in the Pro-Stock class)

The set of pictures labeled BOSS 429 AR are of the standard AR castings that we reworked for a boat customer. You may remember "Turncoat" on the IR board and his talk of a set of "magic" heads that we did. This is THE very set. The chambers remain full hemi, and the large intake and huge exhaust ports were reworked at ENDYN by yours truly and they did indeed flow some bodacious numbers. They also propelled their drag boat to the head of its class. Blown alky flat bottom as I recall.

These pictures will require many hours of explanation, but the quality of design and execution is exceptional. There are thousands of details that will never be divulged, as I've likely forgotten them by now. The heads did run lean while producing about 30% greater transient acceleration than the worked AR counterparts. I might mention that ENDYN's reworked AR heads were easily 120 to 150 meaningful HP over the same castings reworked by "head specialists". When our "cheap" pricing was taken into account, a lot of our competitors didn't fare too well. The well thought out engineering and detail of execution has long been out trademark, and, yes, we offered a money back guarantee.

- The Old One

	Original AR Casting - Block and chamber side view of hemi chambers and overall head.
	Original AR Casting - Exterior view (looking in) huge reworked stock exhaust ports..
	Original AR Casting - Exterior view (looking in) large non directional inlet ports..
	Original AR Casting - Chamber side view (looking out) exhaust ports..
	Original AR Casting - Chamber side view (looking out) inlet ports..
	ENDYN Super Swirl - Block and chamber side view of swirl inducing chambers and overall head.
	ENDYN Super Swirl - Closer look at CNC chamber detail. Note single angle valve seats.
	ENDYN Super Swirl - Chamber side view (looking out) SC Area Rule exhaust ports.
	ENDYN Super Swirl - Chamber side view (looking out) swirl inducing inlet ports.
	ENDYN Super Swirl - Exterior view (looking in) revised swirl intake port. Note hump at ST radius.
	ENDYN Super Swirl - exterior view (looking in) smaller sonic area rule exhaust port.
	ENDYN Super Swirl - A more revealing view of the sonic area rule exhaust port.
	Ford Catalog - Once upon a time you could buy these heads from Ford in assembled sets with manifold. Click on the thumb nail for a 600 x 777 (161 KB) pictures or if you want to see a bigger pictures a 1200 x 1554 (370 KB) is also available.
Latest Big BOSS (Really Big) When I last updated this in end of August, I asked Larry the following: > I'm adding the pictures for the tiny chamber BOSS head. It is > the "latest" head. But what does that mean? Was it the last > update of the BOSS head, or latest as in, people still race > these motors and in late 1990's you revise them again? Larry wrote back: Frank, As long as there's a market for these pieces, they will continue to be revised. Unfortunately due to a lack of funding and sponsorship from FoMoCo, running the BOSS engines is difficult in NHRA competition. The BOSS 429's wide cylinder bores and relative "high" standard deck height have made these engines a favorite with the no-holds-barred ProStock competitors in IHRA. There is no displacement limit and these engines can grow to 830 cid and more. Needless to say, the efficiency of the engine sucks when stretched to that size, but that old adage about no substitute for cubic inches still rules in this case. They only buzz 6,500 rpm, but the torque production is brutal, so with the correct gearing, rpm and hp isn't necessary. I thought some of you might like to know... -frank
	As the popularity of the big BOSS engines was growing, due primarily to the fact that the displacement could go as high as 830 cubic inches for match racing, we decided that a new generation head was necessary for these low revving (6500 rpm) 1700 hp monsters. The heads also weigh 7 pounds more than the last BOSS heads we designed.
	The chamber is very compact and houses intake valve and exhaust valves that can be 2.75" and 2.0" respectively.
	The inlet ports are very steep and do not have a generous short turn radius. This aspect is noteworthy and you'll be seeing this with increasingly frequency in the future cylinder head designs.
	The exhaust ports are "tiny" and when properly reworked, supportive of the supersonic area rule configuration

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The Big BOSS

Latest Big BOSS (Really Big)