Budget heads <$800
 

Lately a lot of people have been posting about pro comp heads. Regardless of their castings and part quality my biggest problem with them is their flow. They have terrible mid lift flow and they have huge intake chambers. As a result they perform poorly.

So I quickly put together a small chart of similar priced budget head options $700. Procomp is the only aluminum head option but I wanted to show that budget iron heads could flow better on a nice mild to moderate 350 than procomp heads.

Attachment 342343

Re: Budget heads <$800
 

Peak numbers look good but it's the area under the curve that counts. Mid lift is where the valve spend the greatest amount of time.

Re: Budget heads <$800
 

Nice work on the graphs.
The patriot 185cc head flows more until 600cfm than a procomp 210! 99.9% of people have less than 600 lift.
And if you set on a pair of aluminum heads you can get a set of profilers for $1000.
There are so many better options, just hope some people will actually see and read this.

Re: Budget heads <$800
 

Agreed that is why I posted the graphs. I have never been a fan of pro comp heads because the runners are huge and their mid lift numbers suck. It just seems that these heads come up often in discussion so I wanted to show that regular vortec and rebuild heads like the S/R are a much better choice for a mild 350.

I took all numbers from the manufacturer websites and looked for numbers on vortecs that someone had tested and agreed with other tests.

Yes there are much better heads out there for >1000 but I feel like I have posted about pro comps a dozen times in the last 2 months I figured visual would be the way to go.

I own a set of the patriot heads and they work great, I have also built engines with stock vortecs and S/R heads. They all give great low end and very nice street response.

I have only driven one car with procomps 210CC heads using a Xe274 cam and I can tell you vs my Xe274 with patriot heads it was night and day.

Re: Budget heads <$800
 

Those Patriot Vortecs look very impressive based on the charts above.

Re: Budget heads <$800
 

Here is the image from their old website. Now that promaxx bought them they are rebuilding a new site. Although jegs still sells them and I was told nothing has changed. They are PN 2151 and cost $735. Jegs and summit customer service claims they sell a lot of them and have not had any returns.
As I said before I have been happy with them, I use a Vortec RPM performer manifold.

185cc Cast Iron Vortec Cylinder Heads
Small Block Chevy
2.02''/1.60'' Valves
.575'' lift springs
185cc Intake Runner
64cc Combustion Chamber
Straight Plug
Assembled
Sold as pairs

http://www.jegs.com/photos/700/723/7...flow_chart.gif

Re: Budget heads <$800
 

Here is a neat web-site that I have book marked. I wish I had it a few years ago when I picked up my World Sportsman II's. It compares multiple heads from AFR's to World's to the L98's and LS1 heads and a few others like Trickflow.

Basically, the LS1 was followed right on the heels by the AFR and Vortec's.

GM Tech Head flow comparison

Re: Budget heads <$800
 

If you only have $800 to spend on heads don't get stuck thinking you need to buy brand new heads. I am the second owner of my AFRs and I paid $800 plus shipping for the heads, pushrods, roller rockers (OK so I had to put new inserts in one spark plug hole, one valve cover bolt hole and two exhaust bolt holes). I sold my ported Trick Flows for the same amount.

Re: Budget heads <$800
 

I paid $500 for assembled pro comp aluminum heads. They've done well for my motor.

Re: Budget heads <$800
 

glad the work well for you. I never said they would not work they just under peform vs other heads

Re: Budget heads <$800
 

how do the edelbrock 210 series compare to most heads. Currently running pro comp heads, don't know to much about them.

Re: Budget heads <$800
 

The concept of "budget" anything when it comes to cylinder heads is just silly,unqualified,dumb a$$ ,glossy comic book car rag magazine reading.

Re: Budget heads <$800
 

Please be careful when using manufacturers data from their websites. I'm not saying they lie sometimes.... well, yes, that's exactly what I'm saying.

Re: Budget heads <$800
 

Edelbrock 210 heads are awesome. They flow great and work well on wild 350s, 383s and 400s.

they are worlds above anything procomp

Re: Budget heads <$800
 

What makes procomp so bad? compared to other brands

Re: Budget heads <$800
 

Very poor Q.C.

Re: Budget heads <$800
 

This is why flownumbers dont necessarily mean much.

They have a ls1 head flowing 237 cfm which seems low as i have heard 240's-250 cfm but regardless, that aint much different than a gm vortec right? Have seen 220's-230's posted for those heads.

Difference is power production. Ls1 will easily make well over 400whp on stock head with supporting bolt ons and big cam on 346 cubes. You'll never match that with a vortec stock. Hell even the afr 190 in that article flows 245 and more than ls1, yet you'll also have a very difficult time getting near 400 whp on 350 cubes. I tuned a 360 with afr 190's and a 230/236 .576" cam and it was only good for 350-360 whp. Long way to go.

Also good low and mid lift can be a bad thing for certain applications but in general with low overlap street cams those higher velocity good lower lift flow heads do seem to make torque.

Re: Budget heads <$800
 

Poor QC and very bad flow for the size of the ports. They require large lift cams to make any good power.

Re: Budget heads <$800
 

That's really just the tip of the iceberg...

- The casting quality is trash. They use inferior methods for aluminum casting causing stress fractures from normal use. The castings are also very thin in some critical areas; especially with the BBC series heads they offer.
- the hardware used is absolutely abysmal
- the flow quality AND quantity is horrendous for the port size
- cleaning them up is really a bandaid fix for most of them. Hard to say with all of them since the quality control is all over the place.
- they're an extremely poor copy. Do a side by side comparison and you'll see they really didn't take the right steps to even steal the technology correctly. Sloppy at best.


Procomp = no thanks.

Re: Budget heads <$800
 

They also seem to have pushrod angle issues.