Larry Widmer's "Soft head" swirl technology

[Dave Williams]

-> in indy cars. Hor Rod then put a reference in to one if its back
-> issues, July 1985, to an article titled "Soft Head Technology".  How
-> did this thread start again????

 First there was an article on Widmer's heads, then a bunch of letters
to the editor, then a follow-up article.

 Widmer's concept, best as I remember, was that moving vast quantities
of air was okay, but how the air column behaved in the chamber was at
least as important.  He was playing with piston domes as well as the
port and chamber shapes to get an efficient burn.

 The articles raised an unexpected and disproportionate amount of furor.
Hot Rod had printed the names of some of Widmer's customers.  Unless
a customer asks for secrecy there's nothing wrong with that.
Unfortunately some of the customers took offense and denied running
Widmer's heads, or said they performed poorly.  It's hard to tell; you
can't just bolt something on to a motor and expect it to perform, but
with six figure prize money up for grabs, you don't want to clue the
competition in either.  I lean to the idea that Widmer was on to
something; later photos of NASCAR heads in Circle Track bore an
interesting resemblance to the photos in those old Hot Rod articles,
until everyone went to the tiny combustion chambers and re-angled
valves.

==dave.williams at chaos.lrk.ar.us======================================
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