i recently picked up a new project. the 302 in it was built with trick flow high port heads.my question is are these good heads (there aluminum). the reason i ask is because i see alot of the fuel injected motors (around the 500hp mark and up) using air flow research heads.i would like to shoot for around 550hp mark. which heads would be better for this?

 

I have trick flow track heat heads on my 65 maustang and love them. the AFR only make a couple of HP more than the trick flows out of the box. Something like 385 to 370 in one test I read. Now AFR heads are cnc ported from the factory so they should make a little more power. Now if you port a set of trick flow heads I would say they should make more power. Besides the boss 302 head had the canted valve design and so does the trick flow. This allows for bigger valves. I am running an X303 cam with 2.02 intake valve and I have plenty of valve to piston clearence.

When I first bought my heads I read alot of AFR heads were having casting problems or flaws in the castings. I am sure that has changed. It's been almost 3 years. On the same note trick flow had problems with their first release as well which has since been fixed.

Since you have the heads run them. My purchase came down to mostly price as well because everything else is really close plus i think the trick flow heads are a better design.

 

Yeah, I agree with RTM. I have the Trick Fow Twisted Wedge heads on my 408 stroker and I like them.These are a stage 3 full port, the engine is in my gallery. I've had No problems with them...run em!

 

The stock AFR's and the Canfields make more power then the stock Trick Flow heads. Make the same mods to the Canfields, AFR's, and Trick Flows, and guess what? The TF heads are still behind on power compared to the other two. Logical, isn't it. The higher HP engines use the AFR's for a reason. I don't remember the issue, but Muscle Mustang and Fast Fords magazine did many tests with all the popular heads out there. It backed up what I say. Are your heads the Twisted Wedge style? If they are, then your pistons probably have valvepockets cut in them to match your TF heads. Twisted. If you wanted to use another brand of head, you would have to change your pistons, or your valves would hit with a high lift cam.

 

My point is AFR heads are ported from the factory and trick flow are not and the test I saw only had the AFR head ahead by like 15hp. The question would what is the best bang for the buck and which head makes the best power for your engine rpm. Just because the head makes big HP numbers doesn't mean it's for everyone. there are many things to selecting the correct head and the other items as well when building an engine. Also one head may benefit from a different cam where as the other would suffer.

The benefit in trick flow heads is that you can run a high lift cam with the 2.02 valve and not have clearence issues. Take a look at the trick flow canted valve design and this is how you can run a 2.02 valve.

As for my motor it's a pure stock 94 bottom end. No custom pistons for me because there is no need. Just bolted them on and run the hell out of it.

Now I am not saying trick flow is the best by any means. My point was that trick flow doesn't port their heads and AFR does. Would the afr heads be 15 hp behind if they weren't ported? I don't now. For the price of the trick flows I don't think one could go wrong and for roduval his heads are paid and wanted an opinion on what he had. For him to get 550hp I think any head he gets will need some serious prot work.

Now you want to see a head that makes big HP. Go to Jegs and check out the new head they have for small block fords. It's so bad it may be to much for the normal street engine. Matter of fact roduval you should check them out if thats the kind of hp your looking for and then sell the trick flows.

I work with a guy that has a 500hp rear wheel stock bottom end motor with trick flow heads on it. The motor has been on a dyno to prove but his heads have had some nice work done to them.

 

Heres some flow figures for a few heads:

IN @ .500 / ex @ .500

AFR 185CC 267 / 185

TFS Twisted
Wedge 252.5 / 191

TFS Stage 3
Twisted wedge 290 / 198

As you can see, the Twisted Wedge flows better on the exhaust side right out of the box as compared to the AFR. The small block Fords are known to breath much better if more emphasis is put on the exhaust side. Ported, they flow excellent.

My 408 with the Trick Flows and a Vortech SuperCharger was putting out around 650 rwhp in my 95 Bronco.

There are 8 second Mustangs running twisted Wedge heads, so the problem is??

Yes, AFR is a great head, no doubt. But the TFS is a good competitor.

Keep your cylinder heads roduval, they have plenty of potential to produce the HP you are looking for. You will need to have them ported to get to 550, but you would have to port any others also to get that kind of HP.

I didenty list the Canfields for flow #s, because the only flow #'s I have are for the 2.05/1.69 heads and that is a different beast all togeather.

 

the cam this kid was running was a .588 lift cam on bolth in. and exh. the pistons are custom cut JEs with DEEP cuts for the valves. if you put the heads next to a stock set you can see the exh ports are much higher on the TFs. also i have been messing around with porting my self on cast iron heads and can see these have been tweeked a little bit. the valves are in line (not canted correct?) and they have comp cams magnum roller rockers sitting on top.to tell you the truth if i can hit the 500hp mark i might run a 100 shot of nos just for the strip. i just ran down stairs and looked at the heads quick,the in are 2.10 and the exh are 1.62. according to the paper work i got with the car the valve seats were machined and the spring seats were milled out to allow for bigger springs. the reason i ask about all this is because the kid i got the car from couldn't get this set up to run right but i think ken and i have figured it out (it's fuel injected).the other reason i ask is because i see so many other engine builders using the afr heads i'm starting to wonder if they work better with some of the other parts versus the tf heads.