Frankly the flow numbers out of the box are dismal at best. There is simply no arguing that. These heads flow less than stock 20 year old chevy vortec heads that had smaller valves. The redesigned chamber is a great improvement over the stock head. That'll be worth power for sure. If the market picks up TA may invest in a TE 350 head or maybe a stage 2 style exhaust port. It ain't going to happen at this rate though.
I sent the original flow charts that TA released. He said the stage one porting will be all I need. He also recommended going with the Chevy rocker option beings I don’t have a roller set up on my current motor. He feels with the extra compression the aluminum head will allow and proper cam 500 HP on pump gas is not a difficult task and should be achievable without spinning the motor over 6500. Dropping off the block after turkey day. Hopefully he’ll say this one is worthy.
Cool. With 55cc chambers your comp should be 1/2 point higher than the 59cc irons, or 60+cc after polishing them.
I stand by my point that if anyone can produce a 480 hp Buick 350 with 355 cubes, 10:1, and iron heads I will bow down. Until then the alum heads are far superior to the iron castings in every way. Just the fact that they are a closed chamber design makes a huge improvement opportunity with a quench (squish zone between the head and piston). The CFM measurement is not directly an indication of HP it’s just a factor in the equation. It’s been proven that a high flowing CFM head may be absolutely terrible for real world performance. my second set of alum heads will be a Frankenstein setup with a lot of cutting welding, custom intake and headers etc. It’s going to take me at least 100 hours of fabricating but I will have the only tall raised port 350 head in the world. I’m using a turbo that cam feed 1800 HP and a spare engine that I can afford to blow up. This engine still has forged rods and diamond pistons with an internal balance. I do this because I love it, so please stop the trash talking and help one another. The Buick works is way to small to be divided by arguments over CFM!
Not sure the partial quench area will offset additional shrouding of the valves. My BBchevy runs way better with the valves unshrouded than with closed chambers. But thats a Chevy.
Also, if you aren’t looking up to Sean, you’re making a mistake. He seems to be the only man who really means business around the 350 heads. I'll leave this here, but I was chugging booze from a trophy we had won the prior weekend, so I was not in the clearest state of mind when I posted this.
Well I wrote that when I was about 10 beers deep, so it’s gotta be true right? Anyways, I know you’ve been beating on the same engine for years and years now, meaning you too know how to build a great 350.
Really Sean? My engine made 342 on an engine dyno with factory GS air cleaner installed, 2 1/2" exhaust pipes and the same dynomax mufflers I run on the car. Iron manifolds. 9.8 compression, Q-jet. I do have TA's stainless valves (along with other TA parts) in this engine and really like them. They are a must have for anyone building a 350. If I remember Mikes build there was a single plane intake (no air filter), Holley carb, headers (no muffs), .600" lift cam (maybe roller), along with the heads (don't remember if they were ported or as cast). Compression ratio??? All this was in the deleted thread. After I installed the engine and was making passes at a dragstrip I tuned out 3 tenths from the carb that was not 100% on the dyno. I believe that combo on the dyno today would show much better. I would conservatively say 360. 3 tenths is probably more than 18hp. So are you saying that open headers, single plane intake, Holley with no filter, bigger cam, more compression, and the heads are only worth maybe 120HP? So 4000 + dollars nets maybe 120hp? Maybe Guy has it right with a $250 nitrous kit. Don't get me wrong, I love the engine they built. I'll bet it's a blast to drive. You brought this up again. These heads are sold fully assembled. Could be installed in a day and put on a dyno. So far nobody other than Mike has an engine running with them. I'll bet there is nobody on this planet with more passes using a 350 Buick engine than me. My car has more than a shake down run around the block. Look up 22 years of the Pure Stock drag race results, Factory stock results, 20+ years of Norwalk raceday results. And I'm not even planing to write a book. (friendly reminder) I respect Sean but can't say I look up to him, sorry. Maybe I am wrong. We all need to stop the bashing. It's really embarrassing to our community especially when a staff member is doing it. Like telling someone to shut up then deleting that post. Yeah I saw it.
Airflow is power what the side velocity but it always goes back to combination. You can look at the Cleveland's and laugh all you want. Switch from a 2 barrel to 4 barrel head, its different engine when the combo changes accordingly. Because why? Air flow for decades hot rod, PHR,and car Craft magazines have done relentless build ups on small block Chevrolets varying all the way up to 1 + hp/ cubic inch it didn't matter if the heads or cast iron or aluminum. (Some were ported at various levels) You get a rough idea what power is going to be like but you have to look at your overall combination.
Actually the head flow is arguably the greatest factor/contributor to HP in any build. You know this. It's a shame the other thread is gone. There was some good information buried in it.
I believe you misunderstood what Sean meant. He stated: "The CFM measurement is not directly an indication of HP it’s just a factor in the equation. It’s been proven that a high flowing CFM head may be absolutely terrible for real world performance." Yes CFM is in indicator of potential max HP. This is great at a dragstrip. However max flow could impair driveabilty for uses other than wide open throttle. This was the case with the Cleveland design and other tunnel port designs that were not good for everyday use. Same as my example of modern 6.4 Hemi in trucks. The ports flow too much air for low RPM use. They crutched this with electronics and gearing. Could be solved with smaller ports. Chevy did this with the 454 years ago. They made an intake port that was smaller than the oval port. It's called the peanut port. This was done for low RPM pulling torque.
I think we need to see what a 480 HP SBB would put down at the track installed in a full weight GS. Then we need a real world evaluation of it’s street manners. That will really say it all. Until we get results like that, everything else is really speculation. I know head flow is everything when it comes to the BBB, but from what I have seen, the 350 might be different. Maybe these heads have advantages that will be of benefit despite the head flow. We will find out when we get those kind of results.
I should have also typed in port velocity is nearly as important as cfm.. I'd wager strongly these heads are not in any danger of having too large of ports.
