I have noticed with AFR, there are a few little things people have to do to make them fit, per sey.
They are nothing spectacular, but they can be enough to **** someone off.
For example.
Gasket for intake manifolds to match. Which one for LT1 manifold and LT4 manifold
Oil drain up front, supposedly they are working it out, but until then the drain needs to be done.
Jim Masons valve cover issues with hold down bolts, needed to mill center bolts down.
Manifold bolts also dont go all the way through on some holes.

Is there anymore?

 

With afr or any head you have to be spific .Lt1 or Lt4 they are different.

 

Some of the AFRs have raised exhaust ports, they need slight elongation to AC / Alt bracket bolts that go to the header bolts.

Regarding the intake ports, the best thing to do is get your intake port-matched to the heads and use the appropriate gasket. In my case, I already had a ported intake so had to do a little (very minor) gasket matching on the intake ports of the heads.

 

We had some minor issues as you pointed out with my MTI 396 LT1's new AFR195CC LT1/LT4 "Eliminator" competition heads. Ordered the intake gasket from AFR and got the valve covers and manifold bolt issues fixed. My shop guy did not see a problem with the oil drain.

One of my pushrod holes did not align properly and the pushrod was too tight. We had to shave a little to get it right The new GM LS7 lifters were different but we were lucky that the original MTI pushrod length was a good fit. The new Ultra Pro Magnum Rockers fit with no problems.

Should fire it up and test drive later this week. Next drag race event is 10/18 so we will see how the new set up does. I also went with 42LBS injectors, 58TB and Lloyd Elliott ported LT1 intake. Moe Bailey, one of the top LT1 tuners, did the mail order tune. Dyno tune with him this winter.

 

I am really looking forward to your HP etc. Your engine was identical to mine, for the most part.
Good to find out these little things prior to purchasing. I dont know Moe Bailey did tuning, link?.

 

Moehorsepower is what Moe goes by. He is mainly known by the F Body crowd. Tuned some of the fastest LT1 F bodies in the country. Phone number 254-644-2656. Lloyd Elliott recommended him.

 

Thanks

 

You bought a set of AFR's?

 

Going down that path. It takes a while when wife, daughter are both in college (daughter over seas in South Carolina), and mortgage here in Hawaii is half my check. Eventually.

 

The rocker covers are a big problem on the LT4's with those plastic rocker covers because of the thin little O-Ring gasket and stud hold down system they use. LT1 magnesium rocker covers with the thick rubber gasket or the stamped steel F-Body/B Body rocker covers fit fine.

AFR is selling intake gaskets that fit the port opening now so that problem is solved. Buy the recommended AFR PN Gasket and port match the intake to it, no problems.

It was a minor problem anyway as all I had to do was move the hold tab holes up .060 on a Fel Pro (stock LT4 gasket)... Fit the 195 Elims perfectly. The only thing anyone had a real problem with were LT4 intakes that had already been ported to the 777 "off road" gasket. The port is too tall on the roof to line up properly with the 195 Elims. I thought everyone knew you can't mix and match heads and intakes ported to different gasket specs and expect them to line up correctly.

Now the LT4 intake manifold itself is a problem. The top of the runners right at the gasket surface hit the wider valve cover gasket surface of the AFR heads... I had to grind about .150 off it to clear on Nolands engine. Pics and documentation are in his engine thread.

The drivers side front oil drain back is just flat drilled in the wrong place for a LTX block. Most engine builders don't even look becasue they don't bother to do any oil return work on their engines. If they did they would notice it is 100% blocked by the water pump bolt pad. AFR uses the same location as the GEN I SBC. This was a problem on the old AFR castings as well. Maybe they will fix it soon. If not it's short work with a die grinder to un-block it and your engine builder should be grinding to enlarge the oil returns anyway.

The one engine I built with a stock LT4 intake bolted up fine using the stock intake bolts, so maybe the intake bolts bottoming out is a prouduction varience thing.... my personal car with AFR210 elim's has a converted Super Victor so I have no idea whether they fit a stock intake or not.

I didn't have any problems with the AC brackets on mine or Nolands car. Nor the headers or exhaust system.

One other problem I had. The Comp port heads all use a 2.08 intake valve. That is bigger than most anyone else's aftermarket heads for the LTX. It can be very very tight on radial clearance with most off the shelf pistons. If you cam has a slow ramp it is probally not a problem (ie 234@.050 in Nolands engine = NO problems) but if your trying to make some real HP and the cam has a lot duration at .050 check carefully. I had to cut my first set of Wiseco pistons and the current Manley pistons for radial clearance on the intake valve reliefs.
Will

 

Started up the 396 today with the new AFR 195CC Eliminator Competition heads. Ready to go racing.

My shop guy said there was no blockage at all with the front oil drainback hole. My block was a MTI 396 LT1 shortblock built in 2001. Anybody have any thoughts why my front was not blocked?

 

The best thought is to pull off your valve covers and take a look to see if your shoppe was just too lazy to pull it back apart to check.

 

They're probably confusing the head not being drilled with the drain back hole vs the block blocking the return. Gotta look down the drainback with a flashlight to see blockage.

 

Why no Beehive springs recommended or used on AFRs? I like the 921/918's. So does the industry of websites for hot rodders?