Which heads are better? price, performance are all going into consideration here. What do you guys think?










Joey

 

Are you talking about buying new heads or porting what you have? What are your goals, how will you use the car?

Rich Krause

 

Good questions.

Also, what kind of a budget for the engine?

 

I will port the heads no matter what. The car will see the track more than anything. Drivability will not be a concern because I have a daily driver. I just don't know which heads i should get afr or lt4.

 

TTT

 

I'd like to help, but I still don't know what you are building. Street car, street/strip, race? NA, blower, nitrous? Displacement, rpm range? Etc.

In very general terms: the AFR's have higher performance potential but are more expensive because you have to buy a new set of castings to start with. OTOH, a set of ported LT4 castings can flow quite well for a 23 degree head. If you are buying new castings, get the AFR. If you already have the LT4's, stay with them unless it's a relatively high budget, max performance application. Even relatively mild blower cars especially can benefit from the AFR castings because you can get them with a combustion chamber as large as 74cc. This allows for a low CR without a huge piston dish. Also, the thicker deck is nice as it is more rigid and promotes gasket retention.

If you have very deep pockets, you can adapt a set of 15 or 18 degree gen I heads to your LT1, or just swap out the LT1 for a gen I engine. Or if you are a .com millionaire, get a set of Arao 4-valvers. http://www.araoengineering.com/ Figure $8-10,000 for the whole package unless you are a skilled fabricator and can make your own headers and intake, etc.

So, as the Old Stroker said, budget is a big part of this choice.

Rich Krause

 

The car is gonna be a street/strip car, but more for the strip. I'm going with a brand new 350 setup possibly a 355. I'm hoping for a mid to high 11 sec car. The car might see nitrous, a 100 shot at most. I'm leaning towards a set of S2 LT4 heads form somewhere. or either a bare set of lt4 heads and just port them somewherw which ever is cheaper. I'm kinda on a budget.









joey

 

The AFR 190cc can get up to 280cfm @.550 lift with a competition type port job. I'm sure more if you can find a good porter out there.
So, it's a matter of what your goals are. I've said the AFR 190cc as an example, since they're close in price for what you would pay for a good set of LT4 heads ported.

 

As far as rwhp i want to achieve somewhere around 400-420 rwhp. Hope this helps.

 

Joe: if you have to buy new cores the AFR isn't much more expensive. And it does have more potential.

Rich Krause

 

How much would a new set of afr's cost?

 

There is GP being run by Bret Bauer for AFR 195's I think. Here is the link

http://web.camaross.com/forums/showt...hreadid=143341

 

There's a price sheet on their web page.

Rich Krause