Hello,

Are Dart Iron Eagle heads better flowing heads then World Products Sportsman II heads? I brought the sportsman II heads but could of brought the Iron Eagles for the same price. Both sets of heads have 200cc intake runners and 2.02" vavles. I checked out a lot of engine shop's websites and many of them use Iron Eagle heads on their street/strip engines. Are Dart heads really that much better?

Thanks,
Kevin

 

Not as far as I'm concerned Sportman II flow better according to this test. In my humble opinion If you bought Sportsman II heads you bought the best iron heads out there for the money, they flow just as good as aluminum heads that cost twice as much at .400 - .500, where you are most concerned about
http://www.chevyhiperformance.com/te...98/index6.html

 

Thanks for the information motorhead, I'm glad to see that the sportsman IIs out flow the Iron Eagles.
In a couple of years I want to build a 500+hp 383ci or 406ci small block, I hope that I can make that power with the sportsman IIs.


[Modified by L-82kid, 6:56 PM 9/19/2003]

 

I'm not sure... but I heard somewhere that Dart and World Castings used to be the same company about 10 years ago??? I've read/ heard mechanics and machinists refer to the world heads as Dart heads.

I bought them for a couple of reasons: I have an aversion to aluminum heads, they were cheap, and I didn't have any better leads at that time.
A fellow forum member said that these are good heads, but they are really meant to be ported. I don't have the skills or the money to have them ported. If I needed that much power, I'd just go out and buy some AFRs or TFS wedge's or Brodix heads-- but I don't particularly trust myself with aluminum.
My engine building skills are questionable (she runs good, need tuning, but she's a leaker), but I'm getting better. My only regret is that I bought the heads assembled. They used some junk parts, in my case.
Don't get me wrong, the castings themselves are great! I also say that the valves are good quality too. Its also possible that the factory worker was stoned when he put my heads together and mismatched some of the parts.
I had issues with the spring dampers, and the umbrella seals. I had oil consumption, and when I pulled the valve covers off, I found debris lodged in the corners next to the bolts that are near the oil drains. Turns out that the debris was a combination of the umbrella seals getting chewed up by the damper springs, and the tips of the damper springs themselves. I pulled the heads, and removed all the valves and springs. I found that 12 out of the 16 umbrella seals had been damaged.
I took a spring w/ damper, and tried to put an undamaged umbrella seal inside the damper, just like it would be if it were on the valve itself. I found that there was NO GAP BETWEEN THE O.D. OF THE SEAL AND THE I.D. OF THE DAMPER SPRING. No wonder the seals were chewed and mangled.
The dampers' coils have a constant thickness right up to about 3/16" from both ends of the spring. At that first/last 3/16" of the coil, the thickness was reduced to about half. This little tip has a tendancy to break off for some reason!! Not good to have small 3/16" pieces of metal bouncing around in your engine!
My machinist suggested that I manually finish what normal use had started, and I broke off the rest of the tips from the rest of the dampers.
I checked the spring rates with my tester, and they were all withing 1-2 lbs of each other, and still in spec with my cam, so I decided to stick with the spings for the time being.
I had my machinist machine the guides for teflon oil seals, and my oil consumption has been resolved.

There seem to be a couple variations of the castings themselves. I have the 200cc intake, 64cc exhaust, 64cc combustion chamber, straight plug version, and my springs are at 1.82" installed height. Others with the same combo have springs of 1.75" installed height.
I'm a little annoyed at the fact that I have to either shim the heck out of the springs AND/OR use offset keepers just to be able to fit a decent priced replacement spring in there.
I had to return the recommended compcams springs becasue they didn't have enough seat pressure at 1.82". Since then, I think crane has come out with a low priced set of offset 7degree keepers that I can use to get the right seat pressure.
Its either get a set of replacement springs, and use the offset keepers, or, buy larger diameter springs, have the heads machined to accept the springs, and buy a set of new retainers that'll fit the larger diameter springs.

 

Richard Maskin of Dart Heads and Bill Mitchell of Mitchell Hard Core/The Engine Shop joined together and developed the original World Products Sportsman II heads. Four or five years ago they parted company. Bill Mitchell retained the World Products name and Sportsman II heads while Richard Maskin started producing the Iron Eagle heads under the Dart name. Maskin designed both heads.

They are both excellent heads and you will have a hard time finding any performance difference between them.

 

I did forget to mention that I bought mine bare and had them professionally built with the best parts and 5 angle competition valve job. I do believe they ( World Castings) has sorted out the problems with the heads and are safe to buy with all the hardware now.

You are right about the name in fact at the dragstrip they call the heads Dart Sportsman II. :D

 

I'm running the Dart Iron Eagles, MountainMotor race ported mine. INMO they are one great set of heads. I am running a fairly mild cam (278) in my setup and still managed to put down a 12.46 @ 116.2 mph last fall with 15 BFG T/A's. I had real traction problems, with more cam and drag radials I have no worries about getting in the low 11's, but for me I am very content with the existing setup and still manage 18 - 20 mpg on the highway.