Long story short:

I paid about $2500 for a set of "race" heads. I took 'em to my local guru this week and dropped them off for a thorough inspection. He called and said the bowls didn't look very race ready. I called the shop that I bought the heads from (another thing: When I bought them, they were "our race heads" etc on the website and when I spoke with them. However the boxes are from a different sponsor) they said "We don't believe in hand polishing the bowls. Since I hadn't looked very closely at the bowls, I assumed they'd been cnc'd and the local guy was talking about hand smoothing, so I let it go at that.

I was going over the heads with my local engine guru today, and the bowls are just nasty...



The bowls are extremely rough. I mean like textured concrete. One of the heads has "cleanup" written on the deck in blue sharpie



This is definitely not what I was expecting from a set of race heads. The guru (who drag races professionally in addition to having a local race shop) says leaving the heads the way they are will be leaving 5-8% (so 40-65hp) on the bench. He talked to the machine shop that will be doing my block work, and they said the valves would need grinding work and cnc'ing the bowls would run $800-$1000. They also said for $2500, I could have used my stock heads and had them truly race ported. The engine guru took the heads by two other shops today that also do cnc work and prep race heads. According to him, neither shop was excited about the quality of the chambers.

I'm a bit disgusted with the quality. The bowls are still in rough casting, except where the cnc machine overlapped a bit doing the valve openings.

These heads should be similar to AFR 225s which are fully cnc'd. I visited the website of the company whose name is on the box, and they mention cnc'ing the chambers for stage 1 heads. For the price I paid, I'd expect these heads to be top of the line.

I measured the valves, and they are the correct size, but since I ordered a custom bowl size and these are rough castings, I am pretty sure they are the stock dimensions.

Needless to say, I am thinking of returning these.

I need some input. Am I being unrealistic by expecting $2500 race heads to have cnc'd and matched bowls rather than rough castings?

 

For that amount of money paid the bowl should be CNC'd smooth. AFR heads are, like you mentioned. I would return these and get a set of AFRs most definetely, especially with the HP loss your guru mentioned and price paid.
Philip S.

 

A good point has been made in another thread, that I am refering to the chambers and not the valve bowls. I believe I said bowls to the vendor, so need to talk to them again and make sure we're both talking about the chambers. Is this a North / South thing?

 

for $2500 they should be a pair of diamonds

Why didn't you just go AFR?

 

I ordered these before the 225s were available (or at least before I heard about them - I didn't see them listed anywhere when I purchased, either). This has been a hurry up and wait kind of project.

 

From what I know the chambers should be CNC'd smooth, the intake valve bowl should be slightly rough(not polished) and the exhaust valve bowl should be smooth.
Philip S.

 

For that money, the chamber should have been worked over. Since you are blown, I'd assume you'd have them opened up some to lower compression.

Here is a shot of my TEA heads. These have CNC chamber work that has been hand finished. Even after the chamber work, the chambers are smaller than stock with the slight mill and larger valves. Looks a little different than yours.

 

I'm not sure. My ARE heads looked AWESEOM! Total eye candy. But they made shitty power..... My GTP heads don't look near as nice and I'd even call them rough but they make excellent power... Go figure though huh? LOL

 

well im not sure about stage 3 or 1 or whatever but i know the guy that did my heads has done stupidfasts heads currently running about in the top 3 on the speed list i would imagine and we used the stock heads on our 5.3 and are seeing like 35+ rwhp for 600$ you cant beat that. sorry looked for his number but lost it but his name is loyd elliot out of DFW and he is the man and prolly the nicest guy you will meet and will do anything to make you happy if interested lemme know and i will find the number PM me or something but overall great guy


BTW you would still need the valves and valve job (still much cheaper than 2500 bucks mine total was like maybe a grand with the new head pieces and such had the machine shop put it all together for me to so it would save time)