I agree with both of the previous posts.  I will also add..........you will blow that $5K right out of the water doing a 445, even if you do most of the labor yourself.  You could probably buy the 454, open it up, give it a look, some rings, and exhaust seats and still be about where you will end up on a 445 in total........and also have an engine worth much more down the road just because it is a 427 block.  Jay is right, it is a steal if it even runs and holds water at $5K.   JMO.

Speaking VERY generally, a 2X4 FE will make more steam and go faster than a single carb.  It has a huge amount to do with how much a particular engine demands.  The bigger the mill underneath, the more a 2X4 will help, as long as it is a good enough manifold.  A tunnel wedge is borderline on being too big for a 427, and it is too big for anything smaller.  I have a customer with a 511 cube roller cam FE.  We did the engine with a Victor that I modified extensively, and a 4150 that most would call a "950".  It made 820 hp and a little over 700 ft-lbs torque.  When we freshened the engine,  I did a tunnel wedge in similar fashion, and two 850's.  On the same dyno, same cam, same everything, it then made 880 hp and 770 ft-lbs torque.  A huge difference.  By contrast, I did a 445 for a nice man with a LR 2X4 and two 600's that made 580 power and just under 600 torque.  The very same combo with a RPM manifold and a 750 DP made 560 power and a tad MORE torque than the 2X4.  If we go smaller and less, the difference will be smaller and less, until we finally get to the point where the single four suits the demands the best, and then the single will win.

On heads that are too big for an engine, a smaller (single four) manifold will crutch the issue often times.  My opinion is that on the combo Brent described, he has a "mid-size" FE by today's standards, with a "too big" port, so the single four with less volume helps the "big head" problem and the single four shines. 

A dual plane HR manifold with two 715's is 40 hp and no torque, better than the same engine with a dual plane and a single 780.  I did that back to back once on a 427 cube flat tappet.  The curves are different, and the single carb has better torque way down low, and falls off sooner with a different bell shape of the power curve.

It is hard to make a blanket statement about one versus two without looking at the other factors.  I did not mention T-rams for either one, but in that world, the dual carbs are absolutely better, as others have mentioned.

That should be a nice street driver at 10.25 C/R, and with that 106 cam it'll sound like John Force's funny car.

I'll buy that thing for $375 Robby, and throw in another $25 so you can get a dam pedicure.  Those Hebrew track shoes are hell on a man's feet!  Call me.

Does anyone make an aluminum head for a 390 with 58-64 cc combustion chambers? I am considering a move to aluminum but am afraid if I went with an Edelbrock or Felony head with 72-76 chambers the drop in my compression would almost negate any performance gains. My current heads are C8AE-H heads with CJ valves, milled to 58cc chambers and showed to flow 230 intake and 180 exhaust on the flowbench. I would like a head where I could use my Comp rockers and Harland Sharp stock style shafts. The closer to $2000.00 I could stay the better. I am running an Erson solid cam with .595 lift and 242-246 duration at .050. MY intake is a port matched RPM with an 850 dbl pumper. This is a mild bracket car with a 3400 stall and 4.30 rear gears. It runs low 12's but I am hoping to get into the high 11's. Can a set of pro ports be done for 2500.00? Do the Blue Thunder medium risers with the quench chambers use stock type rockers? Can the Felony's be milled closer to 64cc? Can I trust a set of Doves Canadian CJ heads to not need work to function properly? I know for the same money I could almost build a stroker but for now I would like the heads and possibly upgrade the short block sometime down the road. Thanks for your opinions. Jim

According to my buret, it takes about .0058 of an inch per 1 cc on an Edelbrock 6005 or any chamber with similar deck area.  The MR/HR/TP chamber and the 6008 Edelbrock have a larger surface area and are .0053 per cc.   I have to do careful cc work on heads with class rules and those numbers are exact.  Milling most FE heads .060 will change the volume by about 10 cc's.

You can't quite do the Pro Ports for $2500.  I'm not sure, but I think Barry's heads are in that range.  It costs some more to go Pro Ports, so a guy would have to weigh his options.   The Street Pro Ports that I do would be at least 90 cfm better on the intake, and at least 50 cfm better exhaust than what you posted.  That would be worth huge gains.  There is a post below where Barry listed some of  the numbers on his as cast heads also.  The Survival head "as cast" would appear to be a significant improvement with no porting, over what you have.  A person does not want to go too big on port volume at the 400 cube mark, so you should consider the cost, flow, and port volume in your weighing of the options.  It seems to me that a four tier system has been forming as far as aftermarket aluminium heads are concerned.  First there are the "out of the box Eds, then Barry's "out of the box" heads, then some CNC options like Craft and Barry sell, as well as my Street/Strip Pro Port, and then the high end stuff that requires big bores, manifold mods, and offset rockers.  There are variations within those four categories, and different ways to prep them all for the task, but basically there are four food groups of ways to go about it......a very general and basic guide, and the costs will go up as you work through the range...........the Ed being the least expensive, and the "high end" all-out stuff being the most expensive.  It is also important to do something that is a "fit" for your combo and your intended purpose.  A person wouldn't want to drag race with a sway bar, or road race without one.........kinda the same with engine parts, but harder to explain quickly.

Just honing the mains would not shorten it materially.  I agree with Mr. Barry that the Cloyes stuff is the best and always has a better fit than the others.  I am not in love with the Ford Racing offering because they have split rollers.  Even the Summits (Cloyes gears) have a true roller chain in them.   The Cloyes gears are a few thou larger in diameter than most others.  You can check the diameter with a dial caliper and two 1/4-inch drill bits.  The circumference of course changes by about three times the diameter, which effects the tension fairly quickly.  Once you get a good fit, take the chain back off and drop it in a bucket of oil overnight.  You will thank me in 50,000 miles!

The guides in the Pro Ports are finished.  They send the seats, guides, and heli-coils in a bag, with the castings.  On moving the guides, I have moved them by using a .625 OD guide and offsetting it.  That will get you over .040, and the std valve location is .050 to .055 from the Ed or 427 location, so you almost get it back.  It seems to help from 3 to 5 cfm in most cases to put it back.  Possibly more with large valves on a smallish bore.  I do my "Street Pro Port" only one way.  They are 2.20/1.65 sizes.  They will fit anything 4.05 or larger.  There may be a little bit of intake shrouding on the small bores, but I think the overall gains still hugely offset the minimal loss on that.  The 1.65 exhausts are plenty plenty in the port we use.  A piloted cutter from the bowl side will trim the fat guide away real nice.

On the statement of having to move stuff around........that was the main reason I did the street/strip program.  It uses a stock MR flange location, and requires no offset rockers or lifters.  Any manifold with a MR port location will fit the port location.  I had several good programs for various applications before, but basically all of them needed manifold work or manifold work plus offset rockers to be really effective.  The mission on the street/strip deal was to optimize the head with a small volume, small cross-section, and a stock port location.  They came out better than expected.  I went to our local track with that light blue T-Bolt clone today, and it went 6.26 on 275/60 ET Street tires, spinning a little.  Rolled across the scales at 3480. It will be at Beaver next week.  It is a 496, but that is plenty of head for any 445, and it is especially suited for mild cams with lower lifts.  I am interested in using the head on some mild 390 builds, and I expect it will be a plus on the smaller engines.  A small head will still work on a big engine(sometimes better than a big head), but a big head will KILL a small engine...dead.

Quote from: CaptCobrajet on April 15, 2014, 08:37:40 AM

The only "oops" was he had a thermostat in it and a mechanical water pump and it blew a frost plug out when it went from 2000 rpm to 6000 rpm in about a second.  Blair Patrick

A frost plug blew out?
It had pound in plugs at 496 inch's?

Yep.  It is an early top-oiler Ford block.  We drilled it for pushrod oiling.  Not as thick as the aftermarket, but better than a sideoiler for cylinder wall integrity.  He had blocked the bypass and only had three 1/8 holes in the T-stat.  Left the line at 140 with a 180 T-stat.......that watter had to go somewhere!

Modifying the standard Ed in my opinion is not the way to get the most for your money.  CNC programs for the standard head that make it bigger and bigger are not the best either, in my opinion.  The Pro Port Ed is absolutely the best platform.  It is a "porter's head".   I rarely see mention of the Pro Ports in forum discussions.  They have a tiny port...........just big enough to get a tool started, and a finished guide hole. They also have a spark plug hole and only enough chamber cast in to make a rough seat hole.   A blank sheet of paper, basically.  The port can be small.........in the stock location for a MR gasket.   It could also be mid 170's on CC's and flow 170 at .200, 280-ish at .400, and 320-sumpn at .600.  It can have an exhaust with a nice raised floor with no welding.  There is alot more to a cylinder head than just the max flow number............especially with streetable cams at .600 lift or less.  All of these fellers sell nice products.  My choice is the Pro Port.  If you buy any of the other heads and spend equal money on prep, I have concluded that the Ed Pro Port with a well-designed CNC program and the right finish work will give the most bang for the buck.  We did a 496 cuber at 12.5 static that made 785 hp and 710 tq with a small Pro Port as described.  The proud owner put it in a street car.  He then decided to go and run a little at the racetrack.  It went 6.20 at 110 with DOT tires.  He had to coast through the 1/4 mile because he only has a 6-point rollbar.  The only "oops" was he had a thermostat in it and a mechanical water pump and it blew a frost plug out when it went from 2000 rpm to 6000 rpm in about a second.  With a little tweaking, this car will go 6.00's and probably 9.40..........and not exceed 7000 rpm except at the finish line.   The car is a '64 Fairlane and weighs 3350 lbs with a driver.  It has a 4.11 Detroit Locker......not even a spool!  Pro Ports..............the timeslip don't lie.  There is a pic of the car on the FE Forum in Don Fottis post.  It really looks like a grocery getter.   Pro Ports..........................

Blair Patrick