PRO COMP ALUMINUM HEADS

Originally Posted by kgordonl

VERY NICE DENNIS!!! Thanks for the info, I've been looking forward to hearing how the swap to AFR's worked out for you. Sounds like I stand to gain in the neighborhood of 50 horses if I do the same. What kind of work did you do on the AFR's, or are they pretty much "out of the box"??? Did you go wth the 205's with the nitrous exhaust port?

Only other question now is whether or not I can swap my heads in the car with my head studs... I'm waiting to hear the answer to that on another thread

Thanks. I was surprised at the gain, but could feel it on the street too. I used to obliterate the street tires in 1st and 2nd gear by command at any RPM with the ProComps. After the swap, 3rd gear came in line too. Push the pedal to the floor at 3000 or higher RPM and the tires immediately start squealing and the rear of the car tries to pass the front--sometimes from the right and sometimes from the left. Actually I think the motor in this car is now too powerful to be on the street and treat the gas pedal almost like it has an egg under it. The neat thing is that the car was pretty much fully tuned for the ProComps and I used the same tune with the AFR's. Spending some time properly tuning the AFR's should result in even more HP.

I traded some stuff for the used AFR's, which were the standard 58cc models (60cc actual.) They were never modified and I left them like them like that. I did have a valve job done to them and the deck resurfaced to remove some scratches. My machinist friend was very pleased how they turned out and he verified seat sealing with a vacuum. I then installed the same valve springs, cups, and retainers that were on the ProComps. I found that the Manley Ford guide plates fit better than the ARP stuff when I was aligning my roller rockers.

Do you remember if you head studs are the newer type that have allen head tops? They would be real easy to remove if that is what you got.

It is really too bad that so many people buy something strictly based on the price. As one gets older, they sooner or later realize that most often, you only get what you pay for. I am glad to see that these guys who bought some cheap copy of a good head actually went so far as to get what they should have got in the first place, and there was a BIG differance. When I tested the procomp heads several years ago, I was surprised they were soo bad, but everybody has to make up their own mind when it comes to spending money. If all of you could only know the goy who owns procomp, you would be sick. He copies many good parts, andd he cant eveen make a good copy. Pretty sick huh.

JOE SHERMAN RACING ENGINES

Originally Posted by dennis111

Do you remember if you head studs are the newer type that have allen head tops? They would be real easy to remove if that is what you got.

I just looked at the tops of my head studs... and as a matter of fact, they are allen heads. That takes care of that issue; now I just need to save more money!!! The AFR's are probably still down the road a ways, so I still plan to put my car on the dyno as soon as I get an ignition problem figured out! If it wasn't for that, I would have already been on the dyno by now. (I'll post that issue on a separate thread if you're interested)
Thanks again for the good info Dennis! It sounds like you're having a blast, and I've enjoyed reading about it.
So no port matching, cleaning up the runners, or anything?

Okay Joe... as usual you were right!!! As I've learned more about your credentials, I've started paying more attention to your advice. As for me, I already had the ProComps before joining this forum. The question some one has to ask themselves when looking at the Pro Comps is, "Is ~50-60 more horsepower and better quality worth about a thousand bucks?" (Of course I'm comparing the $700 I've got in my ProComp 210's to the ~$1700 a set of new AFR 205's would cost.) If I had it to do over, I would have sprung for the AFR's. By the way Joe, is it worth the extra money for the nitrous exhaust port in the 205's?

Yep Big Joe, I am now a believer. I have never seen anyone perform a comparison swap before and so I structured my winter rebuild with minimal changes just to prove or disprove whether there was a difference. My ProComps had good hardware, pocket porting, and some other port work done. I also opened up where the pushrod goes through. They seemed to run fine and I never had any running type problems with them, but the motor never really performed up to my expectations on 2 separate builds and 80 or so runs at the track. Clean up the cylinder bore, swap on the AFR's and suddenly the car made more mph on its first outing than it anytime all last year.

The lesson learned is that if you are going to spend your hard earned $$ on heads, buy a quality one from one of the other major manufacturers and skip over the ProComp quap.

Anyone looking for a deal on a cheap pair of aluminum heads?

Originally Posted by kgordonl

I just looked at the tops of my head studs... and as a matter of fact, they are allen heads. That takes care of that issue; now I just need to save more money!!! The AFR's are probably still down the road a ways, so I still plan to put my car on the dyno as soon as I get an ignition problem figured out! If it wasn't for that, I would have already been on the dyno by now. (I'll post that issue on a separate thread if you're interested)
Thanks again for the good info Dennis! It sounds like you're having a blast, and I've enjoyed reading about it.

Oh, by all means dyno your motor and let us know how you do. I would love to know what differences you will see when you later go to a better head--that 424 will certainly rock!!!!!

Good Luck!

I dont think the exhaust flow in important at all. The intake flow is about three times as imporrtant as the exhaust.testing I have done has shown that a 30 CFM gain on the exhaust is about the same as a 10 CFM gain on the intake. When I am trying to improve the flow of a certain head, I dont even mess with the exhaust if is is anything decent. I am working on my BB Ford 428 stroker now. I got some Edelbrock heads, and they dont even come close to their catalog flow numbers. I played with them a little, and I got the intake up to 291 CFM ( from 264 out of the box)

JOE SHERMAN RACING ENGINES

Thanks Joe! Back to pinching some pennies!
To be fair, I beleive the ProComps are a significant improvement over a set of factory iron heads and for the $700 I have invested in them I wouldn't say that they're a rip-off when you consider how expensive the really good heads are. However, if you can pinch some pennies or cut corners somewhere else the extra money is apparantly very well spent. I don't think anyone likes leaving 50 or more horses on the table!
I'd love to see a "head to head" comparison of the ProComp 210's and the Vic Jr.'s since that's the head ProComp copied.
What are your thoughts on the Vic Jr.'s Joe?

I few years ago I did a back to back test on a nice 347(that I did not build) with victor jrs out of the box and a nice solid roller cam, It made 501 or 502(cant remember exactly) I got some brand new ( then) cnc ported 205 AFR, and with no other changes it went up to 552 at 7200 RPM. The engine had a super victor and I used one of my own 850 Demon carbs. I flowed both those heads, and the vic jrs were way down on the flow bench too. (35 0r 40 cfm)

JOE SHERMAN RACING ENGINES

Originally Posted by BIGJOE

I few years ago I did a back to back test on a nice 347(that I did not build) with victor jrs out of the box and a nice solid roller cam, It made 501 or 502(cant remember exactly) I got some brand new ( then) cnc ported 205 AFR, and with no other changes it went up to 552 at 7200 RPM. The engine had a super victor and I used one of my own 850 Demon carbs. I flowed both those heads, and the vic jrs were way down on the flow bench too. (35 0r 40 cfm)

JOE SHERMAN RACING ENGINES

Judging from this and Dennis' experience, it sounds like the ProComp 210's and the Vic Jr.'s are pretty much in the same boat performance-wise.

Originally Posted by kgordonl

Judging from this and Dennis' experience, it sounds like the ProComp 210's and the Vic Jr.'s are pretty much in the same boat performance-wise.

How did you arrive at that conclusion?...Big Joe did not compare the vic jrs to pro comps he compared them to AFR 205s...Dennis went from pro comps to AFRs so there has not been a direct comparison from vic jrs to pro comps....

.If you look around on various race forums there are lots of guys making big hp and running very fast with vic jrs.....I have yet to see that with pro comps...

Mavman went from Vic jrs to AFR 225s IIRC and saw no improvement!