Aluminum Cylinder Heads Continued
Thursday, August 23rd, 2007
I was strongly considering the Edelbrock E-Tec 170s (PN 6097 complete) for their great flow (215 intake and 189 exhaust at 0.400” according to Chevy High Performance in the book “Small Block Chevy Engine Buildups”) and reasonable price (about $1200 from Summit). At 170ccs I expected them to have good low end torque and they have 64 cc combustion chambers that would allow a relatively high compression ratio for my EFI 350, which is exactly what I wanted. But they did require the Scoggin-Dickey Vortec intake to use with either a TPI or equivalent intake manifold, since they have the Vortec-specific bolt pattern. I used the book “Small Block Chevy Engine Buildups” extensively during this period because it has flow numbers measured on the same bench by the same people for over 40 cylinder heads, both stock and aftermarket, in three categories: under 180 cc’s on the intake, 180-199 cc’s, and over 200 cc’s. Since my autocross car needed good power at low RPMs, I was looking for a set of heads on the small side in the second category. The best aluminum non-Vortec performers in this class were AFR 190s.