AFR 165 or 185's for a 289?

Joe,

you are a legend in engine builders and I totally respect your opinion but everything else bieng the same compression,cam,intake etc.....you can really say that afr 165's will beat TW heads in overall power? I think it may be close but the TW's should make more.

I helped a friend build a 5.0 for a sunbeam tiger, it was a 5.0 10.2 compression, comp xe274hr cam, a worked rpm manifold and a demon 750 annular VS carb, it took alot of tuning but that sucker pulled 429 hp on the dyno and as I remember about 370 ft lbs, I was shocked at the power, it started around 380 hp and messing with timing,jetting, sec springs brought it up to 429hp to this day I wonder if it was right, I remember the hp# because of a 429 ford. As I remember the low end #'s were not too shabby either. Iknow the heads were milled but not ported.

Hp seemed too high but I sat there and watched it.......

What about putting the right valve job in the unported twisted wedge head? Might even clean up an AFR 185 at that point.

That 429hp seems awfully high for a 5.0. I just saw an article on a XE274 cammed 302 with some flowing Dart heads that pushed it to around 360hp. You sure it wasn't a 347 Stroker motor, would make it more reasonable power on the table.