Our good friends at Ferrea Racing Components recently shared their newest Hollow Stem valves ad for 2012 on their company Facebook page, which features a complete listing of the specifications and design attributes of this style of high performance valve.
The design of a hollow stem valve is pretty straightforward in that – as the name gives away, they feature a stem void of the stainless, alloy, or titanium material that makes up the rest of the valve. What are the advantages to this?
As was discussed in a previous technical article with Ferrea’s Zeke Urrutia last year, the lighter that a valve is, that much better and efficient the entire valvetrain can operate. Retainers, lifters, and the camshaft all adapt to a lighter valve better, producing vastly improved harmonics. This results in a valvetrain and therefore and engine as a whole that’s more stable and with a much smoother power band.
Said Urrutia “if you look at the durations of the power bands, whether it’s on a dyno or a spintron, the windows are shortened up a lot closer because you’re getting to that point that much faster with the lighter valves. If you take just the valve spring for example combined with a titanium or light stainless valve, the spring would see a lot more life because the mass driving the spring is the valve and it’s that much lighter. Thus, the spring doesn’t have to work itself as hard.”
As is pointed out in the ad above, hollow stem valves are some 22% lighter than conventional stainless alloy valves, creating a lightweight option for hardcore racing engine builders.
To learn more about Ferrea Racing Components and their extensive line of valvertain components and accessories, be sure and visit ferrea.com.