Carcraft builds a Cleveland

So carcraft did a buildup of a 570hp cleveland. Thing is after reading the article I see no point in investing in trick flow heads. The stock heads were open chamber 2v heads and the engine produced about 500hp with them. They had less CR and the cam was sized for the twisted wedge heads. When the worst heads you can have on a cleveland are 70hp shy of the $2,000 aftermarkets they're not worth the money.

http://www.hotrod.com/how-to/engine/1505-build-a-570hp-351-cleveland/

I'm not impressed either. Especially since the deck was stacked for the TFS heads. It sounded like an ad for TFS to me. Chuck

How frustrating.

Yet another apples to bananas engine parts magazine article.

Huge compression difference, and carb/spacer changes from one to another? Kinda useless to the common car guy. I mean, I guess it might be OK to show what more compression will give you over your semi stock 2V's, but not really showing what the TFS heads are really worth.

Simply using stock iron 4V heads would have made it a little more tolerable of a comparison.

And a set of real headers that a real car guy might use on his real street driven car. Same goes for the intake.

Yes, definitely an extended Trick Flow advertisement.

Bummer.

They should have dyno'ed it with the Australian 2 heads that are closed chambers. I'd bet they are within 10 hp of the twisted wedge heads for a whole lot less money. Also what about the CHI heads? They also make very decent power.

I'm sure that Trick Flow is an advertiser, while nobody advertises CHI or Aussie heads in Hot Rod/CarCraft. They would never compare the Trick Flow heads against stock 4V closed chamber heads. I believe the CHI, Aussie 2V, and stock 4V CC (with minor clean up/porting) heads would all outperform the Trick Flow heads.

A bit off topic but, these are some very impressive parts. Unfortunately they are priced accordingly.

http://www.scmenginedevelopments.com/-4v-cleveland-heads.html

Chuck