I am trying to make a water cooled head out of my air cooled.
The problem is that the head seems to made out of pig iron of some sort.
I have a brand new miller welder and spool gun for running aluminum wire.
I am running .030 wire 4043 aluminum with 100% argon at 40gph.
When I tried welding on one of the fins I cut off as a test, the weld was full of porosity.
When I welded on a piece of good aluminum plate the welds were great.
Everything was cleaned with a new stainless brush and acetone.
(yes I did try it on one of the cyl fins before I cut the fins off the head and it worked, but
I confess I only made a very small tack weld on the cyl fin).
Anybody got any suggestions?? Has anyone here tried it??
Thanks in advance for any suggestions or info.

Welding cast aluminum is a pain in the arse
All I can say is it must be clean clean clean
Sand blast the head till it's nice an clean with new clean glass beads if ya can
Use a SS brush to clean it afterwards use some acetone or carb cleanerfor the final clean not brake cleaner
Tig welding is what you will need

Mig welding alumium doesn't work at all I've tried plenty of times with cast that's why I got a tig welder


Pre heating cast aluminum works best
With a torch or a oven (oven works best) forget what you preheat it to I'll have to look it up

What is your current welder ?

What did you cut the fins off with?

I had the same idea about making a air to water cooled head but ran out of time it looks verry hashey not finished with it got most of the fins cut off that's about it tried to weld on it with a spool gun but that diddnt help at the time this was about 8-10 months ago?

Would love to see your finished product

Damn. I have a tig torch but not the high frequency welding unit to go with it.
I have many welders: 160amp ac/dc, flux core wire feed, brand new mig wire/gas, and a brand
new millermatic 180 with a spool gun for aluminum.
I guess you seem to be saying it's not clean enough so I will try to bead blast it. (Don't have one yet).
I cut the fins off with a zip cut wheel and a hammer (i'm a bit of a cave man sometimes LOL It's the
sawmill millwright in me).

what brand and model of tig welder

I just have the torch not the welder it hooks to.
I might be screwed cause i'm not gona buy a tig welder.
Wish I could just buy water cooled heads for the fl350. I need two. One for mine and
one for my brothers machine. But they don't make them anymore and I don't know if water cooling just the heads will be enough cooling anyway. I thought about an Engine swap but that's more expensive than trying to make the two smoke run and it's a big job. I have been keeping tabs of all the swaps here on this site. Cutting and pastein to word pad all info. Sue me for stealing info LOL.

I wish emmanuel farrugia would post some stuff on his swap if he is finished it.
I think he was the one that was doing the polaris ho500 swap.
Really wanted to see some performance results on that swap actually.

who did you contact about the water-cooled heads?

I was looking at the aftersucks motorsports site for them.

so hes not making them any more?

try hillside honda
http://www.hillside-honda.com
shoot them an email
there was a rands head on ebay for a while now im guessing it finally sold last month some time ???

Speedchaser needs to run a batch of basic heads for the FL350 a smart design could also use the blank for a FL250 liquid cooled head just a different bolt pattern and dome.

Basic meaning something like this
http://www.pilotodyssey.com/PO/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=506

Or something like the Rand heads

I would not give up just yet on welding do some reading here?

https://www.google.com/search?q=fl350+w ... 3Aofficial

I need to finish this cylinder so someone can try it http://www.pilotodyssey.com/PO/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=10687

Hey hoser you clearly have welded successfully a fl350 cylinder before.
1) Did you use a tig welder or a mig?
2) What did you use to clean the aluminum?
There was a reference made about sand blasting.

Used a Miller syncrowave 200 tig welder, sand blasted to clean the aluminum then wiped down with acetone some areas were brushed with a stainless brush and or a scotch brite pad.

Pics?

If I get this to work with my new miller spool gun I will post pics.
But I am in no mood to buy a tig welder right now.
I have a milling machine and lathe as well so maybe I should try to build a head
from scratch. I don't think it would be that tough but getting the correct design angles
would be, but I could make something reasonably close. Just don't know how good the
performance would be because there is some real math involved in designing a head.
Looking at the pics Hoser posted of the water cooled head I think I could do, just didn't
want to go through all the effort if I could have bought two after market units.

did you try to contact hillside Honda?
the head they make is that nice red one of the photos from HoSer's link

Billet aluminum head they look very sick

or rotax them

I also have a billet Hillside Honda Head....actually s/n #1

Rand

Think I might try that hillside Honda suggestion.
Just came in from the shop and was trying to weld on the head fins again. Just got frustrated.
Must be a lot of magnesium in these heads. What a pain.
Will try to search this site for the number. I know I have seen it here somewhere.
In your opinion is a water cooled head enough or should the cylinder be water cooled as
well? Is just a water cooled head a waste of $$$?

A water cooled head is not a waste of money but if you want total protection, water cool the sleeve too.

Rand

ill agree with rand on this one

the last price i heard from hill side honda was $375 bare aluminum($60 more for anodizing)+ shipping and that was a year ago on the 14 of november

mine had just a water cooled head and it was great never had a problem

only reason i say a go rotax is power

just from me testing mine to see how it rides it has way more balls to them than the stock Engine and my jetting is super fat on the low end(im talking clearing its throat before the power kicks in) cant wait to see it run when its jetted right

i say make one a water-cooled stock Engine and make the other one a rotax 440

i have hillside hondas BRD racing email ill pm you the email addy

Thanks for everyone's input.

I sent hillside an email and here is their reply:


Hello,
Yes I am the manufacturer of the Hillside Honda Water-cooled heads for the FL350. I am out of stock at the moment with no plans for more; unless I can get an order of 4+ going. The Cost/Time of building them is pretty high with not much room for profit. Seeing as how another company makes one for around $350 (a much less detail oriented model), my CNC Billet Head has to be around $400-$425 to make any profit. I love the project as we have one of the greatest historical ties to the Odyssey world, and am glad to get an order going if you can generate some interest.

Thanks for your time and feel free to ask any more questions!
Trevor
Hillside Honda
Brown's R&D

Here he mentions another company makes one. Does anyone know who??

I'm guessing chucklenuts at aftershot motorspurts motorsports

that really sucks at his price went up that much

and that would be a different model than the one Randman has

now I'm wishing I would have pulled both liquid cooled heads from my Odysseys before I sold them

at least I pulled all the other goodies

No its not chucklenuts!

Its Rand Manufacturing out of Bakersfield Ca. And no I'm not the Rand of Rand Manufacturing.

Here is the ebay posting for the last one they sold. Email them and see if they can make one for you! You see them quite often on ebay.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/HONDA-ODYSSEY-F ... 83?vxp=mtr

Rand

That seller is not the manufacturer of that head i don't believe. He is a guy that just had a large horde of pilot and odyssey parts.