New Trick Flow FE cylinder heads & Intake

[CaptCobrajet]

The vein in the floor is interesting.  Curious if it has inserts in the intake and exhaust bolt holes, or just threads.  The exhaust threads won't live long without inserts.  I can't tell by the pics, and have not received heads yet.  The posted numbers look realistic, but benches are like opinions.  I'll know more when I flow one here.  I have about a telephone book worth of FE info from my bench (along with corresponding power and ET) to compare to. 

[C8WE]

Hi Folks,
For a comparison here are the results  of my BBM heads as received using the same flow bench with a 4.250 bore size. 

Jim Slattery

[My427stang]

So, first, I want to say thanks C8WE for posting apples to apples

Second, I want to say clearly that I am not advertising for TFS, because in the past I have not been a TFS fan and actually in their early days fixed quite a few cases of carnage from their bad SBF and SBC heads, but it has been a long time.  The specifics of quality will be important to me.  (valve job, flow, springs and valve choice, rocker threads, intake and exhaust threads, chamber size etc)

Let me put that in other words though, saving 600 bucks won't help if a seat falls out, valve heads breaks, or guide breaks all jamming parts into the cylinder or cylinders.  In the late 90s/early 2000s, I saw all of those.  That was a long time ago though so would like to see the difference

Third, I feel a bit of loyalty to our FE friends and suppliers on and off the forum, and even to Edelbrock for heads, intakes, and even EFI stuff now, so let my comparison be a way to look at this with numbers, and realize if given a close choice, for big power and better parts, likely I'd throw money to our forum guys who likely would build a higher quality head with tighter machining standards

That being said, the TFS, if you compare it against ADVERTISED BBM cost (suppliers feel free to chime in if it's incorrect, this is from BBM's site and seems high to me) the TFS looks pretty good as it slightly outperforms the stock BBM and costs less.  This is using the same bench information from C8WE, NOT TFS advertised numbers

If you compare it against current ACTUAL prices on Summit against an Edelbrock, it's a significantly better deal IMHO. FYI - Because I didn't have the same bench for the Edels, I used STan Weiss's site and used the ones I liked best for a stock head.  However, the difference is great enough that I do not think you could get an Edel there for the cost difference.

To me, I think that ESPECIALLY if the quality is good, Edelbrock should be ready for a decent hit.  See below

[garyv]

Good Info Ross.  All things being equal I think the trick flows will be popular.
$600 is a lot of money in these tough economic times.
Just hanging out on the Facebook FE forum I can tell you a bunch of guys there will be looking at them.
I think it will be easier to make an informed decision when some of the builders here get them in their hands and
we can get their opinion. 
Edelbrock will surely take a hit.
Time will tell.

garyv

[CaptCobrajet]

Did anyone happen to notice that the head they had at SEMA 2016 is not the same head, and not the same ports that were displayed at PRI 2017?  The pics in this thread show the heads are different.  I guess they changed at some stage of the development..........

I am supposed to have one Wednesday. 

[C8WE]

FWIW here are the results of my BBM heads after being ported and new valve seats and different valves. The heads were ported by Laroy and Son from Challis ID using there Superflow bench

[XR7]

One thing I noticed that kind of screws up the "apples to apples" comparison... is the TFS heads were flowed on a 4.125 bore tube, and the BBM were flowed on a 4.250 bore tube. Why would anyone do that??? It will make a difference for sure as I would think the chambers are both wider than 4.125, so not a good flow test on that size bore in my opinion, as it will really hurt the intake flow as far as "shrouding". Exact placement on the bore tube is critical, but if the tube is smaller than the chamber, it will still hurt.

Also, unless you have the same exact valves and valve job BOTH, not apples to apples either, these two can make a huge difference. I am not defending either, have no game in the fight, just don't see it as a good comparison without more details and rework.

My thoughts are the TFS head is a good looking street head, good bang for the buck, aimed at the 600-700 HP market, but not an all out race head at least with those exact ports. Any other FE head that is fully CNC'd would cost much more, but could be much better also.

[plovett]

Just because the TFS heads are CNC'd, that doesn't mean they can't be ported more, or modified?  Right?

I get the feeling there is a feeling that once a head has had CNC porting, it's done and that's all there is.  I don't think that is true.  CNC porting takes the human out of porting and increases consistency.  In this case, I see it more as a manufacturing process, not necessarily the ultimate form of the head.  I could be wrong, though.

JMO,

paulie

[CaptCobrajet]

You are right Paul.  A head doesn't know it is a CNC head until you tell it that it is.  However, one porter's idea, copied by the machine, could remove material that another guy wants to be there......rendering it not possible to do after the first go-around, much like when a particular casting just does not have material desired.  What you don't know without some detective work, is how much meat you have to work with.  The Pro Ports I like for CNC purposes are about five pounds heavier than all others, and have that tiny starter hole.  A blank sheet of canvas that does not require you to compromise with anyone else's prior ideas. 

Folks should be careful to try to compare heads by "he flowed, he said" numbers.  And also not concentrate on the last number on the sheet either.  You really gotta pick a horse and ride it 'til it throws you.  There is so much info floating around that it only complicates the layman's decision.  One thing I can guarantee is that a person shouldn't run out and by any head strictly from an internet flow number.  Much more to it, as many know.  The flow should be comparative, and one of many attributes of a good performing head.  And quality is a whole separate item.

[machoneman]

I'll add to what Blair said as I've been amazed at fellows getting the latest trick CNC'ed heads but then plop on a near as-delivered intake. Worse, they also don't make any effort at what I'll call 'balancing' the entire engine combo (exhaust, carb or EFI, cam, timing, etc.) around those new heads.   

[chilly460]

Agreed, with all the info out there today in various forums like this, seems easy to ask around and get a decent combo going.  Plus you have guys nice enough to post their combos and dynos/ETs so it's fairly easy to put a database together and figure out some good packages.

[TomP]

Here is the one at SEMA this year...


And one from last year (were two there)


Not sure if last years had the same vane in the floor..

[prost]

As Summit owns TFS, wouldn't we expect the price point to be lower on their website than the Edelbrock's?

[mbrunson427]

I may be wrong.....but I had read that Edelbrock's foundry was actually casting these TFS heads for them? In that case, the companies are all tied in together and the price points are all brewed up for a reason.

[chilly460]

The TFS are fully CNCd, while that doesn’t necessarily make them better than a raw cast head, it is somewhat time intensive and requires a pricy machine to perform so it’s not surprising they’re the more expensive option