I am ready to buy a set of heads for the 350TPI I am building. The car must be emissions legal so I pretty much have it narrowed down to a set of Edelbrock Performers and a set of Trickflows. The motor is a freshly rebuilt 350, .030" over. SLP Runners Edelbrock TPI Base LT4 Hot Cam 24# or 30# injectors (not sure if i actually will need to run 30's or not yet) Comp 1.6 roller rockers and lifters Hedman shorties Full 3" catback The Edelbrocks seems like they are made for this motor with intake runner volume of 165cc. However I can not find the actual intake port dimensions anywhere. http://store.summitracing.com/defaul...=egnsearch.asp The price isnt to bad, a tad bit more than I wanted to spend. The other ones I am looking at are the Trickflow 195's. I dont want to much intake runner volume and actually reduce potential performance. Is a 195cc chamber to big? http://store.summitracing.com/partde...7&autoview=sku The key for these heads to be emissions legal. Obviously the Trickflows flow about 30cfm more than the Edelbrock due to the intake port size. Right now I am leaning more towards the Edelbrocks. What are your thoughts?

165 is tiny. You could run a stock vette head and have near that much.

I'd go with the trickflows, personally. Nevermind I hate Edelbrock lol.

Note one is straight plug, other is angle. You'll want angle plug. Chamber CC's are also different, 60 vs 64. Replacing pistons?

Anyway with that cam you'll want a bit larger better flowing port. Everything, IMO, points to the trickflows. Only downside I see are the smaller valve springs.

I agree. My vote is for the TFS heads.
I prefer small chamber and angle plug too.

Trickflow.....

if you were building an engine with a smaller cam, and normal LTR's the Edel's would be fine, but it sounds like your combination would be much happier with TF's.

AFR's aren't street legal? They are the only heads worth buying IMHO. Why pay 100 bucks less and get half the power with TFS or Edelbrock?

I run the TFS heads on my 355 and love them. The only drawback to the is the valve spring that came on mine, and maybe they have better ones on now. They were ok for awhile but I had a number of broken spring dampers on my heads after a couple of seasons of driving. As for power, I think they are great value for the money.

Given the choice than the Trickflows. You will better off especially with future mods.

I would get the Trick flow heads, go with the upgraded 1.46 springs and you will not have any breakage problems. I had the trick flows on my car with a 350 and they make great power and torque.

Half? lol. AFR's with angle plugs, centerbolts... you are gonna pay 1400+ and IMO they arent all that. They also are very poorly finished compared to just about everything out there. I doubt the HP difference is anything significant either.

Trick Flows are the best bang for the buck. You can rework them and they will work just as good as AFR's for $500 less.

AFR's are the #1 23 degree SBC street head out there that I know of - period.

However, the TF head is a great head in it's own right......

If I had the decision to make with "Real world funds" I would get TF's with serious port work. If I had substantial money, it's hard to buy anything much better than CNC'ed ready to go AFR's.... and where is this "Poor finish" coming from? Every CNC port I've seen has been REALLY nice.... damn near chrome-like finish. Every "As cast" AFR port is nice as well.....

The edelbrock's probably shouldn't be considered at this point - but on the same hand - someone trying to make the arguement that 23 deg. TF's are as good as equal port sized AFR's has a tough road to fight up.

A freind of mine, who is a professional engine builder did some tuning on my car to get everything dialed in, said that Trick Fow Heads make great power and torque and that you need to upgrade the spring package and you are good to go. He says it's amazing how good these heads are right out of the box for the money they cost. I would go with them again on the next engine I put together.

You crazy Elyria people....



now if you were from someplace classy like Lorain....

Must be the air here!!

My vote goes for the Trickflows.....I have them on my car and it runs fairly well. Its way out of tune, so I didn't run as good as I can, but will be better this summer when I get a chip for it, a custom burned one that is. I have the Trickflow twisted wedge G2 style and one thing I must comment on is beware of your springs that you put on it in relation to your cam size that you have. The springs I currently have on are good for no more than .500 which is compatible to my CompCams .480 lift, however the cam I have lined up (zz409) will be goin in w/a .520 lift which calls for a heavier spring. In my case, i'll probably just do a complete valve job w/30 deg angles and porting to match up to my up-coming mini-ram and 58mm TB. But anyways, Trickflow gets my vote!! Good luck on your mods

Holy cow, does anybody like the Edelbrocks? I mean even in John Lingenfelter's book he has at least some nice things to say about them, not alot, but at least he mentions them. They're better than stock heads, and apparently designed with the TPI in mind if I'm not mistaken? You can generally find them fairly cheap used too. Also Edelbrock has pretty decent quality heads out of the box. Why so many people BASH their heads I would like to hear. - Really, cause I'm not really to up on the heads game, I'dd like to hear opinions and information. And I mean, come on, NOBODY on here is even close to the legendary knowledge and wisdom that John had on engines. He was truly a genious. May he rest in peace, gone, but never forgotten.

I only saw one negative comment about Edelbrock.
I personally don't know anything in-particular that's so bad about them. They just do not have the out-of-box power potential of the TFS head.
The AFRs are great heads but obviously cost more too.

If someone got a set of Edelbrock heads for cheap and had some nice porting work done then they could compete performance/dollar wise, but you'd have to get them pretty cheap.

Edit: John Lingenfelter was able to make great power with ported stock aluminum vette heads, but that's no indication of the out-of-box power, or performance per dollar. LPE products work great, but have always been very pricey as well.

I'm talking in general, in past posts similar to this, people bash the Edelbrocks. You don't see many giving the thumbs up to them. As per LPE and $, well they are very pricey, but you do get what you pay for, and... amazing products with tons of magazine and press exposur elevates ones business to fame. Prices will be the next to go up, cause the people will come knocking, it's just business.

The edelbrock heads are good heads for what they are. There is no way I would recommend anyone buy a new set, but a close friend of mine got a very very nice used set of the "RPM's" (is there any real difference between those and the normal performer's?) for around $100 when all was said and done. He put someplace around $600 into them at the machine shop and left with a set of heads that flowed decently for the $700 total investment.

But if you are looking at new heads - it's not a matter of the Brocks being "Bad" - there are just better heads in the same price bracket.

I think the only difference between the Performer and the Performer RPM is the RPM's are not emissions legal.

There's got to be more to the story than that - that just makes NO sense what so ever.

Why would you make two castings, one with the exhaust crossover and one without if nothing else was changed? I could see doing it if there was a massive revision elsewhere, but otherwise that's just plain illogical. It's not as if that will significantly cool the head which would have been the only point I could have seen to it, if that was the only change - but unfortunately the head will still be hot as hell no matter what.


EDIT IN: Just looked at some pictures we had of them - no exhaust crossover. That's just odd if that's the only change.

What effect does that really have on the emissions?

That crossover feeds the normal EGR system with the required exhaust gases(instead of using an outside pipe like the vortec's require), as well as "Heating" the manifold in carb'ed applications to keep the fuel vaporized and in suspension.

Once again - I can't understand that being the only change. Illogical.

What's the possibility of passing an emissions test without that crossover?

i believe the RPM edelbrock heads have a bigger intake runner volume and flow more at higher lifts than the performers.

Use the same set up like the outside crossover pipe like on Corvettes and it will pass smog with any heads.

I was just looking into that. Where can I get a kit for it? I can easily weld it into the header.

You can normally pass emissions without the EGR functioning.

Not in all states especially California. California checks for the EGR functioning. So it's best to do it right and don't worry about not passing smog. The car is no faster without the smog devices hook up. Don't you believe that rumor. Check my sig. My car is fully smog legal in California.

I just bash Edelbrock in general. If you do a search of me and Edelbrock, I'm sure you'll see my reasons. In short, they have zero QC. No reason to actually ship out a Performer RPM intake that would never line up on a cookie cutter factory SBC head because of major port misalignment AND faulty machine work. Fortunately, I'm not the only person who has issues. How many people compain of porous casting TPI intakes and coolant leaks where there shouldnt be any? An Edelbrock TPI base I have is a little porous as well but fortunately was of no conseqence since I have all the EGR blocked off. If I didnt, I'd have a real problem. I wont even get into the liars on their "customer service" line.

As for their heads, I think they are ok but 165cc is barely better than stock. I guess if you're looking for a new set of heads, there they are. I think the RPM's have a slightly (170cc) larger intake port, and IIRC the combustion chambers are larger as well. I wouldnt look at any of those heads though for a SBC unless you planned on some serious porting work. With all that, there are better out of the box heads available for cheaper to a little more in cost. Doesnt make much sense if you ask me, not to mention that you run the risk of things not bolting up if Edelbrock's consistency with things like water pumps and intake manifolds carries over to their heads.

Well ok, it's at least good to hear some information and reason for not liking them, not just a "don't buy them". From what the numbers and opinions are, AFR and TF seem to be a bit bigger. Than are the Edelbrocks better than aluminum L98 'vette heads at least? They should be I hope. And porting either would make them as good or better than AFR/TF?? $ is the main factor for many shoppers though.

I don't know if this has been posted before, but here's some info about TFS heads.

http://www.totalengineairflow.com/tech/twisthist.php

The above article is about the Twisted Wedge head from 2000. Myself I'm refering to the Kenny Duttweiler 23 degree Trickflow head.

I would sure hope so. Probably are, they have larger valves and if anything is right in the world, Edelbrock should have made the port a little better design for flow... but who knows. There are just too many other heads out there though that dont need extensive porting and flow well right from the box. Thats money saved right there. A super cheap porting job is still gonna run you $200, and not get you real far. Would be nice if the TF were 185cc, but you cant have everything.

Looking at the prices of heads it definately looks like the Edelbrocks aren't really a good choice for the money.

In my situation I am only really looking for 350chp so I may be better off going with something like a set of Dart 180's. Those can be had for around $800 to my front door.

I saw some flow numbers on those L98 aluminum heads and they really arent anything to write home about. TPIS sells them fully ported and they do put up some pretty good numbers but for $1250 for the set, it's not better than the trickflows or afr's.

At this point I am not sure if I should spend the $1200 - $1300 on the Trickflows or AFR's and just go with a decent set of cast heads.

Any thoughts? What is a good intake runner cc size for my built 350? 180? 190? 195?

Actually Trickflow does make a head that has a smaller intake volume like 175cc. It is designed for the 305 motor. However it flows pretty darn good like 240CFM on the intake side.

Here are the Summit part numbers for the three styles of175cc Trickflow heads. TFS-30300005/6/7. They come with 58CC combustion chambers and that would work just right for the stock pistons.

What effect on the motor does the combustion chamber size have? I see 58CC, 62CC, 64CC. Is it compression? I know stock is 64CC, does 58CC increase compression?

Yes the 58cc will increase compression and that is what you want with aluminum heads. Probably put you around 10:1 with stock pistons. These heads are light years ahead of the Edelbrock heads you quoted. Time marches on and the technology improves every year. These heads are capable of supporting close to 500hp.

I like my Toplines...which most AFR guys don't. - You have to buy them under thier new name wich is RHS. Pro Topline got bought out buy Comp Cams and Racing Head Service(RHS). - still really good heads for the money. I'm running high 11's all motor, no porting on 200cc...

also, I've got just under $1000 in mine brand new w Manley valves and double roller springs.

I am actually looking into a set of Pro Toplines for Vortec's right now. For the money its a pretty hard deal to pass up.

How did you headers bolt up to the heads? I have heard they arent the best when it comes to headers bolting up. Did all the bolts holes line up with the headers?

mine were the cleanest set of as-cast heads I've ever seen. Everything went right together. Every set I've personally ever seen were this way. I've heard of the supposed, friend's sister's boyfriend's friend's Toplines that had crappy casting and didn't flow what they were supposed to, but all that I've seen were great. My little 355 is deffinetly making some power to turn out 11.7 in a 4161lb soft-top tank...

- also, a good friend of mine got the Topline Vortecs. Sweet set of heads. You outta see a set side by side w/ some stock vortecs. truly nice heads.

That's good to know.

I'm using TFS heads on my setup.

Out of the box I thought the heads looked nice. I used a felpro 1010 gasket, but now I hear a lot of the felpro 1010s are failing.

I polished the chambers and assembled using arp hardware.
Compression test is like 150psi on every cyl. I originally got the -2 spring package (.540 lift) but immediately upgraded to the -2 (.600 lift) spring package. I've run two intakes, different ecm's, different tunes, etc. The car pulls great WOT, but has a weird skip that i've been unable to diagnose and correct with tune. It's either mechanical (i.e, I bent a valve doing the springs, bad head gasket, etc) or I just can't get the tune right for the cam. It skips at any RPM.

So there is my mixed review. They seem to be great heads. I've boosted the car 12psi WOT and it pulls like nothing else. It's just not smooth, but its probably my fault.

-- Joe

I have the same heads but I used the Lunati dual springs to go with the cam. Their single springs sucks. I also am using the stock performance GM .028 head gasket. The gasket seals well. When you pull the heads from the block, the gasket is sticking to both surface. These are the best gasket you can get for about $30 from the local GM Dealer.

How do they actually check for a workign EGR?

Thats something i would like to know also. Ilive in Fl, so no emissions for me, just curiosity... I guess the heads don't have a 50 state tag thing to go w/ them but other than that, if the egr is there, hooked up(ecu and vac wise) how would they know the heads don't have the crossover?

When vacuum is applied to the EGR, at least on a TPI, the valve opens and if you do that at idle with no other changes the car will shut off from the massive vacuum leak you just created. If there's no crossover, no free air, no leak, no die. Non functional.

Trick flow used to recommend the 1010's but now I see they want us to use the 1003's When I pull my heads in the upcoming months to do some changes, I'm going to use the 1003's instead of the 1010's I have on there now.