It’s nice to see that gearhead legends don’t just fade away – instead, they keep on working in the shop and playing with toys. This particular toy is a Ford flathead that’s been converted to work with a set of Ardun cylinder heads that are unique on many levels. ‘Big Daddy’ Don Garlits has this engine at his Florida museum, the Don Garlits Museum of Drag Racing.

The Ardun Mechanical Corporation, which was owned by Zora Arkus-Duntov and his brother, Yura, was a venture between the two that culminated in the Ardun cylinder head design seen here. Unfortunately, AMC went bankrupt shortly thereafter, and Zora moved on to greener pastures, eventually resurfacing as the Chief Engineer on the Chevrolet Corvette project for General Motors.

The genius of the original Ardun aluminum hemispherical-chamber cylinder head design gave the wheezy Flathead engine the ability to make over 300 horsepower on gasoline – and as we see in this video, around 500 horsepower while huffing nitro.

It used an overhead-valve arrangement, not the Flatty’s traditional block-mounted valves, and long-and-short pushrods in conjunction with more-traditional rocker arms to actuate the valves. 200 sets of these cylinder heads were made, and Garlits owns four of them.

Fire up the video, listen to the crackle, and enjoy some old-school horsepower. Check out that smile!