As promised the following is the results of my AFR 190 cylinder heads. These are not the competition ported, but simply out of the box. However, the previous owner of these heads had a competition 3 angle valve job.

Took the AFR 190's to the same place I had the ported Darts recently flowed, in which they flowed 250 / 176 @ .600 lift. The exhaust is with a pipe extension.

Flow results of 1st intake port were

.100 = 65
.200 = 131
.300 = 189
.400 = 240
.500 = 261
.550 = 272
.600 = 281

I didn't believe these #'s, I had him do another intake port.... and it was even stronger.

.100 = 65
.200 = 129
.300 = 190
.400 = 242
.500 = 268
.550 = 277
.600 = 282

He was pretty impressed with them... I quizzed him on the flow machine, said it was the same as when the Darts were done, numbers are at 28"..... don't know what else to ask.

Had him do the exhaust, they use a pipe extension, thus the #'s are typically around 10 cfm or so higher I think.

.100 = 50
.200 = 116
.300 = 154
.400 = 188
.500 = 208
.550 = 215
.600 = 217

Wow again..... He then started inspecting the heads.... he said the exhaust ports have been CNC ported, he even showed me the tool marks from the step ups within the CNC pocket cycle. He said the chamber CNC ported as well, however the runners were untouched except for some entrance port matching. I'm pretty sure AFR does the CNC porting at the factory even with the basic heads, but dunno for sure. I really have no idea if his flow machine is accurate or not....but the guy had nothing to gain by inflating these #'s..... and he seems like a very straight shooter. And I will say the ported Dart heads flowed basically what I thought they would on this same machine. Here is a side by side comparison using the stronger AFR port.

Intake

................... AFR..........ported Dart 2......difference
.100.............65....................7 1.................-3
.200.............129..................13 0...............-1
.300.............190..................18 5...............+5
.400.............242..................22 4...............+18
.500.............268..................25 0...............+18
.550.............277..................n/a
.600.............282..................25 0................+32

Exhaust

....................AFR...............Da rt 2...........difference
.100.............55..................48. .................+7
.200.............116................94.. ................+24
.300.............154................126. ...............+28
.400.............188................145. ...............+43
.500.............208................165. ...............+43
.550.............215................n/a
.600.............217................176. ...............+44

These AFR flow #'s even exceed the advertised 190 competition flow chart..... very impressive if they're real.

My only thought is that maybe AFR accidently sold these competition ported heads as out of the box.....

I was going to sell these cylinder heads, but I dropped one on the garage floor, so was holding off until I could figure out the damage to it, but now I think I am going to keep them.

As you can see these cylinder heads flow substantially better than my old iron Darts, even though the Darts were ported.... which by logic would mean a nice HP increase, however, the bad news.... an email friend has advised me that increased head flow with the Superram really shows no benefit, presumably due to the Tuned Port Effect.... I dunno, time will tell.

cheers,
Beach Bum

 

Those beat the posted numbers of "Smokedtires" AFR 210 RR's Race on! At least they won't be a restriction:)

 

Beach, those are some impressive results indeed. You keep hearing all these naysayers about AFR, but when it's time to fish or cut bait, I don't see anybody matching up. It's always "a friend of a friend" or "I heard........ blah blah blah" or people are comparing a larger port to a smaller port. Your numbers are real world and my numbers are real world.......those are hard facts!!:cheers:

As far as the CNC work is concerned, I'm pretty sure AFR offers three levels: as cast, partial CNC, and full CNC..........that could explain what you guys were seeing. Stay tuned on the SR, I'm going to send mine out to Extrude Hone in a couple weeks and we'll see what they can do with it. The guy claimed he could get 290 plus :eek: , but we'll see. Mine flows 279 right now with some tedious hand work, so I'll have them do a baseline when they get it, then another when they're done :D

 

Interesting. That's a lot more flow than my AFR195's. Have the swirl vanes in the valve pockets been removed? Have you cc'd the intake ports. It's really easy to do. Just grease the valve seat and install a valve. Fill the intake port with liquid using a graduated flask (you can get them from a chemical supply store fairly cheap). I would be very interested in seeing if the intake ports really measure 190 cc. If the flow bench is accurate I would keep those heads.

 

I think, like dyno numbers, that it is risky business comparing flow numbers from different benches, run by different operators. Especially, whrn it comes down to small differences. In your case, you have numbers for two sets of heads from a common sourse. THAT is hard to ignore.

RACE ON!!!

 

Those are great flow numbers.

Vic

 

we are taking a set of ported afrs 195 and my brodix t1 cnc heads to the same place and have a very good basline to compare off of + in a couple of weeks we will be taking a set of plain jane race ported afr 220 and have them tested on that same bench
now on the afr heads they all come larger jims 195 bone stock started as 198-199 cc they are now at 207 so beaches 190 are probally pushing at least 195 cc just by a guess but i am very curious where all this testing is going :cheers:

 

Man those are great numbers, & yes if you look at my post you'll see they are better flowing than my 210 :yesnod: . They should be really great on your engine :thumbs:

Congrats :cheers:

 

The previous owner of the cylinder heads (forum member Ralph), has told me that when the 3 angle valve job was done, they also did some light porting in the chamber.... thus may explain the extra flow I am getting above .500...... in comparison to what AFR advertises at the low lifts I am actually a bit shy of the advertised #'s, the mid lift #'s, match up perfectly and the upper lift #'s take off a bit..... this basically coincides with what a little bit of porting would do.

btw, I did not have the runners cc'd, but with the exception of a little entrance port matching, they are untouched and still the cast surface.... I have seen other 190's cc'd..... I think they typically come out between 190 and 194. In any regards, I am happy, they're a great set of small runner cylinder heads.... provided the dropped one is not cracked anyway. :lol:

On how accurate this flow bench is... I don't know, but as Corky said, he is going to the same flow bench within the coming days..... should be a good comparison. But as I have thought about it, I think the flow bench is accurate.... it basically nailed my ported Darts down to what they were supposed to be, and certainly didn't inflate those #'s.... but you never know.

In any regards, whats important, is the same as what would be important on a Dyno, I got a baseline with the old cylinder heads and then flowed the new ones on the same bench, and I have literally 20-30 cfm on the intake and even more on the exhaust. Does this equal more power with a Superram ? With my luck.... probably not..... :(... but I think I'm going to give them a quick try before I sell the Superram. If nothing else, it should be educational.

cheers,
Beach Bum

 

Caboboy,

Can you tell me how much hand work you did to get them to flow 279 cfm... exactly what did you do ? Also, how much is Extrude Hone charging you for their services ?

cheers,
Beach Bum

 

Beach, we blended and matched the base to a 1205, then mocked it up with gaskets and matched all the ports to each other, including radiusing inside the TB ports on the plenum. As you know, these things are so damn loose, we found the work on the base, runners, and plenum didn't match up again when we took it apart and re-assembled it, so there was a little more touchup to do :crazy:

We broke it down and put it back together several times trying to get the best alignment on port openings and doing touch up, but man......what a pain in the neck! There's got to be a better mousetrap, but I want to stay E.O. compliant here in Cali, so I'm stuck with this intake (and heck, it's not a bad alternative)! My whole goal is to get this thing to flow enough so the heads become the restriction at useable lift 'cause I'm happy with those, and I'm getting close....... but I need a little bit more if possible. :lol:

Now, Corky has me thinking about the accuracy of the intake ports on my heads, so I think I'm gonna take them down and have them checked to see if they're reasonably close to 195cc's. They should be, cause the only intake work we did was a little bit of short turn stuff (and a valve job) and they were already at a 1205 out of the box......??????

I can't remember exactly what they told me at Extrude Hone, 'cause I was in traffic on my cell phone when I talked to him, but I do recall it wasn't cheap. I want to say it was like 4, 5, or 6 hundred dollars.......a good chunk of change to be sure, but not too much to make me pass up the chance of maxing out my setup. That old saying "Speed Costs......." is sure true, huh? :crazy:

 

beach if the formula works for 2hp per cfm you are looking at 40-60 hp gain providing the super ram can provide it and i still think a ported super ram can deliver the goods :cheers:

 

Thanks for the information Caboboy.... the extrude honing is a little rich for my blood considering the questionable results.... but I'll be watching for your results.

Corky,

While the motor is tore apart, here are the following things I am either correcting, improving or benefiting from with this head swap:

* Loss of 40 lbs exactly off the front of the vette (Iron Darts weighed exactly 51 lbs fully dressed, the AFR 190's weighed exactly 31 lbs fully dressed.... or at least per my bathroom scale they do.)

* 1/2 point compression increase (Going from roughly 9.75-1 to 10.25-1 with the 58-60 cc chamber vs my old 64 cc chamber, also running a slightly thinner head gasket)

* cylinder head 20 + cfm airflow improvement on the intake side as seen with my flow results

* cylinder head 30+ cfm airflow improvement on the exhaust side as seen with my flow results

* I had some additional plenum to runner port work done on the Superram, thus matching the ported runner to the plenum base.

* Correcting a severe port mismatch between the intake and cylinder heads... there was literally a 3/8" step at the junction between these two with the old set-up

* Correcting a severe vacuum leak resulting from the above problem

* I am installing a new Walbro fuel pump, per my last dyno, above 5000 rpm, my motor is running almost dangerously lean. My thinking is maybe the stock fuel pump couldn't keep up, so its going in the garbage can.

* Hooker header entrance was literally 2-4 mm smaller than the exhaust port on both sides, thus creating a serious wall restriction.... I have this problem with the AFR's too, but I am grinding out the headers to match the exhaust port. (This problem could have really been hurting me in the past, I don't know.)

* My Header smog tubes had cracked last year, thus I removed the tubes and had them tig welded up with plugs while the headers were still on the car... took them off and see the plugs literally went into the header by 1/4 to 1/2" depending on which cylinder head. I recently had these plugs smoothed out. Don't know if this is worth much or not.

* I've also bought new MSD wires, super coil, o2 sensor, etc.... thus a tune up as well.

With all of the above, if I could get a 1.5 tenth et reduction and 1.5 mph average increase in traps I would be very happy. Anything more, and I'll dance naked in the street.

As you know, Phil T ported his brothers AFR heads up above 300 cfm on his Superram big cube motor and their reward was nothing.... thats kind of disheartening for me.

But time will tell and spring is just around the corner.

cheers,
Beach Bum

 

Will you be providing adaquate notice, before the "dance"? That might be worth a two day drive.

RACE ON!!!

 

Hey... if you think I'm going to have to the dance.... I'll sell tickets !!! :lol:

btw, we've sent you numerous messages over the last few days, but they kept getting kicked back...something about your mailbox being full. You might want to check that out.

later
beach