Right/Left Wound Beehive Spring Mystery.
Right/Left Wound Beehive Spring Mystery.
(OP)
Today I was lining up a collection of ovate beehive valve springs (because I have that kind of time) from a Ford 4.6 DOHC 4-valve motor. While doing this, I noticed that roughly half the springs were wound to the right and half wound to the left. Is there any good reason why Ford would specify springs wound in different directions? These are not nested springs... they are the single OEM springs from Ford. I looked at a couple of brand-new heads and all those springs seemed to be wound the same direction. My guess is that some machines wind right, others left but it's all the same to Ford. Is there more to this?





RE: Right/Left Wound Beehive Spring Mystery.
RE: Right/Left Wound Beehive Spring Mystery.
RE: Right/Left Wound Beehive Spring Mystery.
RE: Right/Left Wound Beehive Spring Mystery.
RE: Right/Left Wound Beehive Spring Mystery.
- Steve
RE: Right/Left Wound Beehive Spring Mystery.
RE: Right/Left Wound Beehive Spring Mystery.
If there were nested spings, you'd expect them to be differently wound to prvent lock-up.
There must be a reason. Maybe someone from Frod Munter can chime in?
- Steve
RE: Right/Left Wound Beehive Spring Mystery.
RE: Right/Left Wound Beehive Spring Mystery.
RE: Right/Left Wound Beehive Spring Mystery.
RE: Right/Left Wound Beehive Spring Mystery.
It would be nice to know if there is some though out reason for it though.
RE: Right/Left Wound Beehive Spring Mystery.
RE: Right/Left Wound Beehive Spring Mystery.
Ford found that more springs could be made from the same stock, lower scrap rate, some bean-counting factor.
RE: Right/Left Wound Beehive Spring Mystery.
I suspect valvetrain dynamics figures into why springs are wound in different directions, but it's not tappet offset.
RE: Right/Left Wound Beehive Spring Mystery.
RE: Right/Left Wound Beehive Spring Mystery.
RE: Right/Left Wound Beehive Spring Mystery.
RE: Right/Left Wound Beehive Spring Mystery.
RE: Right/Left Wound Beehive Spring Mystery.
RE: Right/Left Wound Beehive Spring Mystery.
http://w
RE: Right/Left Wound Beehive Spring Mystery.
As the gasses start to rotate when filling the cylinder, I assume they follow the path, choosen by the first molecules entering the cylinder, easiest for them would be to follow same rotational direction as the valve.
but than again, the counterwound beehive mistery may as easy have to do with different after market supplier,...
RE: Right/Left Wound Beehive Spring Mystery.
RE: Right/Left Wound Beehive Spring Mystery.
An interesting clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=019Jyn9oB5k
RE: Right/Left Wound Beehive Spring Mystery.
When did you see a racing spring without a inner dampening spring?
I don't know anything but the people that do.
RE: Right/Left Wound Beehive Spring Mystery.
RE: Right/Left Wound Beehive Spring Mystery.
RE: Right/Left Wound Beehive Spring Mystery.
My opinion is nothing, It's just incedental.
Is it a good thing that the valve to seat contact differs all the time? Maybe for equal wear or seal?
Kind of begs the question, what would happen if we fitted square or oval section valve stems and guides, not very practical from a production point of view, but maybe you could then shape the back of the valve in some way to aid airflow in a certain direction.....
RE: Right/Left Wound Beehive Spring Mystery.
To create swirl, groves in the back of the valve head similar to the vanes on a centrifugal pump would do it, but once again, to what purpose.
Regards
Pat
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RE: Right/Left Wound Beehive Spring Mystery.
RE: Right/Left Wound Beehive Spring Mystery.
- Steve
RE: Right/Left Wound Beehive Spring Mystery.
RE: Right/Left Wound Beehive Spring Mystery.
RE: Right/Left Wound Beehive Spring Mystery.
Regards
Pat
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RE: Right/Left Wound Beehive Spring Mystery.
- Steve
RE: Right/Left Wound Beehive Spring Mystery.
RE: Right/Left Wound Beehive Spring Mystery.
The few I looked ( 1998 Cobra, Lincolns ) at would use a Sealed Power VS1631 which is not beehived in the pictures on line.
RE: Right/Left Wound Beehive Spring Mystery.
is used to ID. I don't know what the wind direction is about.
Torquey; In the OP you say "roughly half" Does this mean It's not precisely half as you'd expect if say, larger valves got a higher rate spring?
RE: Right/Left Wound Beehive Spring Mystery.
Franz
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RE: Right/Left Wound Beehive Spring Mystery.
RE: Right/Left Wound Beehive Spring Mystery.
The OEM heavy duty spring for SBC back in the 70s and 80s was a brown colour hence the name.
Regards
Pat
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RE: Right/Left Wound Beehive Spring Mystery.
The usual reasons given of slightly less reciprocating weight and oval section don't seem to me to be enough to account for their improved performance.
RE: Right/Left Wound Beehive Spring Mystery.
Might be something here . . .
http://www
Norm
RE: Right/Left Wound Beehive Spring Mystery.
RE: Right/Left Wound Beehive Spring Mystery.
yes, surge behavior is the driver for the "beehive" shape. Having a smaller coil diameter changes the spring rate in that region, so you end up with spring with a surge (rsonant) frequency that varies over the lift event. It's effective for "breaking up" resonance (surge).
RE: Right/Left Wound Beehive Spring Mystery.
I recall SBC springs that had a brown coating/paint on them back in the 60's. They were what we used with the Duntov grinds from the Chevy parts counter and to keep the cost down when we started using aftermarket cams. Of course, it wasn't long before we just had to have dual spring set-ups, for our (cranial) heads as much as the fact that we would take the revs up to at least what the cam grinders would claim to be the upper limit of the rev range for a given cam.
Yosh
RE: Right/Left Wound Beehive Spring Mystery.
Were they brown? Hell, Pat, how am I supposed to remember that far back?
Rod
RE: Right/Left Wound Beehive Spring Mystery.
RE: Right/Left Wound Beehive Spring Mystery.
I thought pink rods were for sissies.
Regards
Pat
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RE: Right/Left Wound Beehive Spring Mystery.
ISZ
RE: Right/Left Wound Beehive Spring Mystery.
Norm
RE: Right/Left Wound Beehive Spring Mystery.
I think the good small journal FI type 327 (11/32 bolts) rods were green
RE: Right/Left Wound Beehive Spring Mystery.
RE: Right/Left Wound Beehive Spring Mystery.
RE: Right/Left Wound Beehive Spring Mystery.
as to the benefit of the beehive design, while resonant freq is modified in my opinion the original reason for these springs was much more simple..."how do we fit a larger dia. spring to a head with limited space in the spring seat area.
Not sure you can make much of an argument for beehive springs being "better", all of there benefits can be seen using other spring parameters and combinations and the fatigue life of the beehive design has significant draw backs.
RE: Right/Left Wound Beehive Spring Mystery.
As far as I know, the beehive shape allows a bit more lift or float before the spring binds and bad things happen.
Yosh
RE: Right/Left Wound Beehive Spring Mystery.
http://www.rover-v8.nl/v8web/index.html
I'm guessing it was a weight reducing detail.
RE: Right/Left Wound Beehive Spring Mystery.
Torquey mentioned the springs are "ovate". While he may have been referring to the spring's profile, some very high performance valve springs have been made with oval cross section wire. Round wire is normally used to simplify spring winding. But an oval section wire will give better performance since the spring will be lighter, have a lower installed height, and will have a higher natural frequency than an equivalent round wire spring. The drawback is that winding an oval wire spring is more difficult.
http://www.compcams.com/catalog/299.html
Regards,
Terry