Best Gen 1 SBC 23* Race Head?

Looking for opinions on best Gen 1 SBC 23*, non-raised runner head. Heads under consideration:

Brodix Track 1
Dart Pro 1 215cc
AFR 210cc Race-ready
AFR 220cc Race-ready
All-Pro standard port 220cc 23* head
Edelbrock Victor Jr.
Canfield/Jegs 220cc
Canfield/Jegs 215cc
Trick Flow 215cc

Pro-lightnings seem to be a little hard to come by nowadays. Car will be primarily used for racing. 355, pump gas, Solid roller, .645/.630, 260/264@0.050, 10-11:1, Tunnel ram with 2-450 mech. secondary, 4-speed, 4.88 gear, trying to operate in the 3000-7000 rpm range with a self-imposed limit of 7k rpm. Also, must have something that has potential left to grow into. Advice?

I had a set of Dart Pro 1 215s on a 406 I built for an S10. Made right around 480 rwhp and over 500 #s of torque on pump gas and a mild cam. Granted they were ported pretty good. I liked them so much I found another set for my twin turbo 383 S10 project.

Have you considered an 18* head that uses 23* valve train parts?

What 18* heads use 23* valvetrain parts? I've heard of them but I'm not exactly sure which models use such technology. Only problem I can see with those heads are if they require and 18* manifold, due to the fact that I already have the tunnel ram to use. How good are the Darts, out of the box?

Brodix makes some, but I forgot that you have to use different pistons to match the valve angles. The 18X heads.

As far as the darts, I'm very satisfied. The ones I had on my 406 flowed around 315 on the intake and 220 on the exhaust after a good port job. Dart lists the flow numbers on their website. For the as cast 215s...

Flow, Intake: 276cfm @ .600” lift / 28”
Flow, Exhaust: 180cfm @ .600” lift / 28”

Basically they flow like well ported LT1 castings.

I have a guy you can get the Darts from for $1000 plus shipping :) That's where I got my 200's from.

Check out Ebay. I picked up mine for $760 shipped. They only had 2 hours of run time on them. :)

Good deal, that is a 25% discount, I just wanted something NEW, hadn't had anything NEW in a while, so that's why I saved up.

Yeah, it's good to have a lil money saved up for when people are pissed at their cars. Expensive stuff goes for cheap when that happens. One of my friends receintly picked up a complete miniram setup with rails and injectors for $550. Funny thing is that it uses the vortec bolt pattern and won't work with his 220cc pro action heads.

I didn't know the Darts had so much potential left in them. I was expecting somewhere in the high 290's for the intake and low 200's for the exhaust. Judging by your flow #'s, 97, this would seem to support roughly ~600 HP, just a guess though. Plus, the Darts are on the cheaper end of the spectrum, and they are set up with Comp springs. However, the 215's come with a 1.437" spring, whereas I need the Comp 954 1.550" spring that comes on the 230cc head. Buying a complete set of heads will always be a compromise in one way or the other. For example, the Brodix heads sound great, good valvesprings, decent flow #'s, but they have a 67cc chamber, whereas I'm looking for a 64cc or less. Edelbrock Victor Jr's have decent numbers, but the valvesprings just won't hold the cam I'm using. I was leaning towards Canfield/Jegs, but I've heard they they're relatively thing and cheap castings?

Those 215s I had ended up being very similar to the 227cc Pro 1s. The intake flowed a little more, but the exhaust didn't flow quite what the CNC job did. I was more than pleased though. I don't see 600 flywheel hp as being unreachable with the 215s with a good port job. The new pair I have will be force fed their air, so porting isn't a big deal at the moment. ;)

You can order the 215s with the 1.550 springs. Check Jegs. :)

How's the deck thickness on the Darts? I'm not seeing on the websit where the Darts can be ordered with a 1.550" spring. Would is be a special order? Maybe you can point me in the right direction. Even with the 1.550" springs on the 230cc version, it only shows 190# on the seat, so I'd either have to special order heads from Dart, or tear apart a brand new set of heads to shim the springs to 220-240#. If I buy a complete set of heads, I'd like to be able to bolt them on without worry, and to do so would need the 220-240# of seat pressure that Comp Cams recommends. I am now more seriously looking at the Darts now.

I'm not sure what the deck thickness on the heads are. Never really measured them. It wasn't Jegs, it was Summit that carries them.

http://store.summitracing.com/eproduct.asp?N=120+4294925232+4294922130+303822

They're kinda expensive with the 1.550 springs though, it would probably be a better idea to order a bare set and have them ported and assembled somewhere else. I know when I ordered my first set for the 406, the valve job they did wasn't the greatest so we ended up redoing that. I'm sure this new set will be similar, but they have to come apart anyway for better springs. I think the guy I got mine from wanted to run them on a roundy round car cause there's like 110#s of spring pressure when the valves are closed.

Yeah, they'd be almost $1400 for a complete set with 1.550" springs, and for that, I could get a complete setup directly from AFR for only $75 more, and with the correct valve springs. However, apparently some people have had some problems with the AFR-supplied springs. Now, if I were to go with a set of bare heads, PBM offers a complete valvetrain package, which includes PS824 stainless valves, springs (230# @ 1.950"), guideplates, rocker arm studs, 10* locks, valve seals, and 10* titanium retainers for $300. Now to complete the heads, I'd need spring locators or cups, and valve seats should already be installed in a set of bare heads? To piece all these components together would add up to well over $300, even with non-name brand parts. I'm a little concerned here also about the quality of the springs, even though most of the springs in the US come from only 2 or 3 different manufacturers with a brand name slapped onto them from an aftermarket company. If I wasn't so concerned about the Jegs/Canfield being a thin casting, I'd almost certainly be going with those. Complete from Herbert for <$1300.