Hey guys, I have a tech question for these types of fast burn head designs if anyone knows. From what a mechanic friend has told me,fast burn design has been out since the 80's.Youll find the earlier designs more commonly on 2.8-3.4 V-6 GM MPFI engines.He said it was important to use low octane gas because the unshrouded valves are targets for alot of carbon build up problems.This made sense to me because at a dealer where I used to work,we had to use top engine cleaners quite a bit on these cars more so then others. Higher octane gas burns slower, resulting in poorer combustion and more carbon in a design thats already fast flowing.Another plus is fast burns allow the use of the cheaper priced gas and not the premuims ones while making excellent power. Is this the case with the new heads for the V8 engines now?Or did they advance the technology much better that nowadays the octane grade requirement is not a issue? Or will it depend on the cam,compression and etc one uses?I think this is an good issue to think about...if premium high octane gas causes these type of heads/engine combos to run poorer then regular octane gas,and causes more carbon build up on the valves,it could be something to know ahead of time. Any thoughts?

most of us that are running the fastburn heads or the vortec heads are having 3 angle valve jobs done to them before we use the heads. But over all the desine of the head has inproved a great deal manley in less casting flash and chape of the chambers as far as I know vortec and fast burn heads are the only set of heads that has a performance de crease if you do any exstencive bowl work to them the only thing needed to these heads is a little bit of polishing and a 3 angle valve job as far as fuel goes with the big cams and higher compretion you will have to runn the higher octane fuel. And just so you know Dragula you still have to use that 400 SDPC base with the edlbrock heads as well and as for the debate of with is better I love my fast burns and I have them on two rides my GTA and a truck. Thair has ben a few that have compaired them both and each time thair is mixed feeling on both sets of heads some say fast burns are better some say they are not. I can tell you this with the fast burn heads I had a 3 angle valve gob done and I polished them up my self I didnt even have to mach them to the gaskets they already matched up. Ive never had a set of edlbrock heads that needed that little bit of work before I could use them Ive always had to have a lot of port work done to them as well and I dont expect their new heads to be any diffrent.

I think you have a few alternatives. Get the TFS heads Extrude Hone'd. Or buy the TFS CNC heads, or get the AFR CNC heads.
I wouldn't throw out the TFS heads and You should look at the midflow numbers as well between .3-.4" lift. GM Hiperformance did an excellent comparison of many sbc heads in an article a year ago. Take a look there.

I run FastBurns now and a lot in the past. I'm now ordering some E-Tec 200's to compare/contrast. I'll try to remember to post results when done.