nothing will! December 12th issue of National Dragster, on flip after page 28:

Pro Topline ChevBB open Chamber, 119 cc chambers, rectangular ports, ready to bolt in,
$849.00 per pair! In aluminum! www.competitionproducts.com (http://www.competitionproducts.com)

I know L 88 springs aren't high tech, and the components are just good standard fare, but at this price, iron cylinder head rebuilding, imho, is done like dinner. Only disadvantage is the rect port may need a sharper tune up or a wee-bit steeper gears to effectivly street. And then again, maybe not. But at this price, I think the oval/rect debate is moot.

..If your build up requires square ports,then its a great deal.

Heads 900.00, gears to bring the torque back inline 200.00,gear installation 200.00...may as well go with Merlin ovals...I'm not sure whats in the water in Canada,but ovals ARE better for street/heavy cars.

Robert I agree with you for driving on the street but if you already have a 4.10 already in the car it might be a good deal. If your putting together and engine from scratch with no heads that would be a great deal.

I will just stick with my 049's with the 2.19-1.88's. I only have to rev to about 5800 max with them to get my power. I will be rebuilding it a little milder with a Crane cam this time around with .550 lift and 222 duration @ .050 instead of that XE-284 that is noisy.

Robert I will be putting the 454 back in a Chevelle here soon. My other car is at the body shop as I type it should be done by the end of Jan. I will be adding to the sig here soon. If I kept building motors before the body got done I would never finish it so it had to go to the body shop.

Originally posted by plain 69:
I will be rebuilding it a little milder with a Crane cam this time around with .550 lift and 222 duration @ .050 instead of that XE-284 that is noisy. I am planning to install an XE-284H cam in my 454. What exactly do you mean by noisy. Did the cam perform well and how was the idle ? :confused: Thanks ;)

I didn't see any heads at that price at the link.
Some were close, $25 more. But they were iron, bare, and each. Not a pair. The Al. bare pair price didn't look too bad.

You don't have to have low gears to run rectangle heads. I have switched from 4.10 to 3.31 gears since I mostly do street driving (and I have short rear tires) and I can still incinerate the tires with my 990 head 454. The oval heads will likely make more torque every time, but the stories I hear about how rectangle head engines "chug" up to 3500 rpm and then "need" to be spun to 7500 are just not true. Sure, the rectangle heads are optimal in the higher rpms, but you don't have to spin them that high and still have a quick car.

I hope everyone notices that in this post I never said one head was better than the other. smile.gif

Are you sure those heads are assembled? On their website they are a few hundred dollars higher for a bare casting. As for the xe 284, I have the 274 and it performs great, at idle it only has a vacuum of 11. Mark

I haven't searched their web site but Competition Products has some fabulous prices in their National Dragster ad. SB Manley titanium valves for $425, that's about 1/4 the usual price. Trick Titanium titanium retainers for $70. Arias SB & BB pistons at $375. The mentioned assembled Topline Pro heads. SS valves set of 16 choice of size, $70 for SB, $90 for BB. If I were building an engine right now, I'd jump on this stuff.

http://www.competitionproducts.com/page13.html

no alloys at that price in the catalog.

National Dragster runs alot of ads you don't see in other catalogs, not long ago they had a buy one get one free on GoodYear slicks.

web page (http://www.competitionproducts.com/page13.html)

If you look at this ad, it's for CAST IRON not aluminum, which would still be a decent price and put 'em in line with other manufacturers.


Randy

Originally posted by Rapid Robert:
Heads 900.00, gears to bring the torque back inline 200.00,gear installation 200.00...may as well go with Merlin ovals...I'm not sure whats in the water in Canada,but ovals ARE better for street/heavy cars. I went 11.87@116+ with a near box stock set of Canfield 310cc rect. port heads (match porting), 4 speed tranny and 3.55 gears in my full weight (3,810lbs race weight at the time) 66'. Oh, and I forgot to mention that was with a ~10.4:1, pump gas only, vacuum secondary 830CFM, hydraulic cammed 460ci BBC. Who needs more gear here? smile.gif tongue.gif

And Canfields cost how much? vs. the 900.00 he's talking about? I'd venture to say the Canfields are a much better head than the pro toplines... or we could go this way...your canfields vs. my stock 049's, I don't know what the Canfields cost,but if I put that much money(wouldnt have too) in the 049's what would I be running? I'd be willing to bet your old hydraulic cam is bigger than my little solid cam too...540/558 232/236

It seems Competition Products is getting a lot more aggressive in their advertising. ie: the 2 page ad in Car Craft and Chevy High Performance this month also :confused: National Dragster.

Is Summit going to have some REAL competition? Will this lead to better prices for enthusiasts like us? I GUESS TIME WILL TELL.

Originally posted by Wooderson:
You don't have to have low gears to run rectangle heads. I have switched from 4.10 to 3.31 gears since I mostly do street driving (and I have short rear tires) and I can still incinerate the tires with my 990 head 454. The oval heads will likely make more torque every time, but the stories I hear about how rectangle head engines "chug" up to 3500 rpm and then "need" to be spun to 7500 are just not true. Sure, the rectangle heads are optimal in the higher rpms, but you don't have to spin them that high and still have a quick car.

I hope everyone notices that in this post I never said one head was better than the other. smile.gif Couldn't agree more. Comes down to what you want to use the car as... if you run NA the ovals work great. When you want to go forced induction or spray I like the rectangle ports.

Thank you Pat, thank you Ken. Page 28 plus one flip of the page, "end of the year broom sale". Complete, ready to go Pro Topline in aluminum.............$849.95 real dollars. And, I have no idea what the communists are putting in the water up here these days. It's just that, every time a comrade tells me to walk through THAT door over there, it looks like a huge rectangle to me. :D tongue.gif

Originally posted by Rapid Robert:
And Canfields cost how much? vs. the 900.00 he's talking about? I'd venture to say the Canfields are a much better head than the pro toplines... or we could go this way...your canfields vs. my stock 049's, I don't know what the Canfields cost,but if I put that much money(wouldnt have too) in the 049's what would I be running? I'd be willing to bet your old hydraulic cam is bigger than my little solid cam too...540/558 232/236 Heads 900.00, gears to bring the torque back inline 200.00,Bring it back in line with what? Why are you comparing the info I posted to your ride? The engine I was describing made killer torque, even with a camshaft (Lunati 50250) that was WAY TOO BIG for the combo. You might recall that I gained .7 in ET and 8 mph swapping only the camshaft, springs and retainers. Although the new cam is a solid roller the real advantage of my current cam over the old is that it has 72 degrees of overlap versus 85 degrees of the Lunati hyd. This allows more cylinder pressure and therefore better performance. So those #'s I posted above would have been even MORE impressive with a properly sized hydraulic roller smile.gif But enough about my ride. This post is about pro-topline heads, which I know little about. I do however know a little bit about rect. port combo BBCs and I say that his car would have PLENTY of torque for the application described, IMO.

my $0.02

Hey Texas70,
I'm running the xe284h in my 454.It's got a nice choppy idle and works real well.BUT,it is noisey.It sounds like theres a couple of loose rockers all the time and I've adjusted them numerous times (even installed poly locs).
Several people have told me that this is typical for this cam due the lobe ramp design.The reason does'nt matter, the noise bothers me and eventually I'll change it out.

Ken, you're right,,,it is about pro topline rectangle port heads,my suggestion was to buy Merlin ovals instead(cheaper than the Canfields you mentioned). You will lose some low end torque going with rectal ports,thus the gear suggestion,that he also mentioned in the original post...to make the rectal ports work better. What gears are you running now Ken? I'm hoping headwork and a new cam will knock a second off my own e.t.,but I'll settle for .7-.8 graemlins/waving.gif

redface.gif I was going to mention what a "slouch" Kenny's ride is with those 310cc rect ports on there...but I didnt want to get Ken in any debate....if I didnt have a balance on my charge card right now, I'd buy those heads. Putting $600-800 in old 049s seems ridiculous when these types of choices are available. In fact, my machinist said the same thing, " Why don't you look at some of the Australian heads before you spend "too much" on getting those old heads up to snuff".

He won;t touch World products btw, way too many QC problems.

For the record, I Do like the fact that more oval port castings are being offerred.

Originally posted by Rapid Robert:
Ken, you're right,,,it is about pro topline rectangle port heads,my suggestion was to buy Merlin ovals instead(cheaper than the Canfields you mentioned). You will lose some low end torque going with rectal ports,thus the gear suggestion,that he also mentioned in the original post...to make the rectal ports work better. What gears are you running now Ken? I'm hoping headwork and a new cam will knock a second off my own e.t.,but I'll settle for .7-.8 graemlins/waving.gif Just for the record, I'm also from the "Torque is King Camp", and there's no way to build better low speed torque than running oval port heads (damn, did I just say that :D ). I just wanted to make sure everyone understood that your car engine won't be a dog just cuz you install those rectal port heads. Will it ET was quick is a similarly built oval port engine? Probably not.

As for your ride, Bob, if you follow the formula there no reason to think that you won't attain your goals. The real trick as you already know will be in the suspension. The more I work on my car and try and shave ET the more impressive Ed's ride is. It's hard to get a low compression heavy ride to run the first half of the track. But hey, gives us all (ovals and rects) something to shoot for ;)

My rear gear is 4.10. I may go to a 4.30 later on.

If I'm not mistaken, that price is for one head. Looking in their catalog, the fine print says the minimum order is two pieces. Another thing to watch with Competition Products is their shipping is very expensive.

Sorry to break the news but The Comp Products Pro-Topline Heads for $849 a pair are Cast Iron GM "Replacement Style" Heads.

I have not seen the ad ej but I assume you read it correct unfortunately the aluminum reference is a misprint.

On another note:
If my rect ports are giving me the mph I have I am dam glad I have them. Having a softer hit due to my "lack of oval" heads is what I need and depend on from my combo. 3.42's are in there just for that reason also., same with the tighter converter...Remember I race at a traction challenged track where the weather changes from 80 degrees to 50 degrees from time trials to 2nd or 3rd round. radial tires and the evening dew are no help either. Sure I could have my car running 10.30's but the consistency would be much more difficult to attain given all the variables I have to contend with.

I stopped tuning the car towards the end of the season last year even though I am not done by a long shot. In my class I won 3 of the last 5 races Since it is street legal with a limit of 10.0 ETs I am usually the quickest car there in the class and I have to say I won most of the rounds by the other car breaking out with me on the brakes or they hit the brakes too soon since it was harder to judge me at 125.

I am not trying to toot my own horn here, just saying that there is a bracket racing advantage to having a strong fast mph and if my non oval heads are helping in the mph department that is good....FOR ME. My plan is to get 127 mph out of it next season.

Most Oval ports including cleaned up GM castings are the optimum for most street/strip rides for optimum ET and low end.

Chris, the ND ad price is for a pair, complete "ready to bolt on". Without doubt, they are iron since nowhere in the ad does it say aluminum. They also have Pro Topline SB replacement type heads (Pro Torkers) for $499. Much less than the WP SR Torquers (usually $650+). While these heads may not be the very best heads for a high HP engine, the prices seem pretty good to me.

If I were building a driver (a real driver, not a weekend car), I'd use the SB heads in a second. I'm not sure about the BB heads. With 308cc rect ports and 119cc chambers, they might be a bit of a problem to use. They have a thick deck so milling might be needed to get decent compression without a huge dome.

Originally posted by Texas70:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by plain 69:
I will be rebuilding it a little milder with a Crane cam this time around with .550 lift and 222 duration @ .050 instead of that XE-284 that is noisy. I am planning to install an XE-284H cam in my 454. What exactly do you mean by noisy. Did the cam perform well and how was the idle ? :confused: Thanks ;) </font>[/QUOTE]The BBC XE cam makes a tapping noise sounds like your valve lash is loose. At least it did on a 454 I used to have. But the performance is outstanding... if you can ignore the tapping. graemlins/thumbsup.gif

Originally posted by Pat Kelley:
Chris, the ND ad price is for a pair, complete "ready to bolt on". Without doubt, they are iron since nowhere in the ad does it say aluminum. They also have Pro Topline SB replacement type heads (Pro Torkers) for $499. Much less than the WP SR Torquers (usually $650+). While these heads may not be the very best heads for a high HP engine, the prices seem pretty good to me.

If I were building a driver (a real driver, not a weekend car), I'd use the SB heads in a second. I'm not sure about the BB heads. With 308cc rect ports and 119cc chambers, they might be a bit of a problem to use. They have a thick deck so milling might be needed to get decent compression without a huge dome. I have used quite a few sets of the Pro SR heads & I feel they are nicer casting than the World SR. Very nice piece, 167cc in port but we always buy them bare & assemble them as we have seen a few issues with folks bringing in "good deal" assembled heads in regards to the "quality" of assembly & clearances.
We check the guide clearances & vacuum check the valve job etc. & assm. them with either Ferrea or Manley valves & positive Viton type seals, Z28 springs etc. In other words, they are done right.
And our price is pretty fair on these too ;)

Yeah, it looks like they are cast iron. I know what got my brain to think aluminum. Where it says, "thick deck casting", I associated with what AFR does with their aluminum heads. So, my brain says, 'well, they are copying the best ideas, no R and D dollars in that, and I've never heard of thick deck castings in iron [I really haven't], mus' be aluminum'. But it shore looks like iron. Nevertheless, I've got 3 grand U.S. in a set of #781's. Maybe 849 bucks aint so bad. But yeah, looks like the water up here is worse than even I thought. Sorry. graemlins/sad.gif

Yea, you gotta watch that stuff, I bought a pair of new sbc heads on e bay last year thinking they where aluminum. When they showed up, they were iron. Before I called the guy and bitched him out, I went back and reread the ad. It said nothing about them being aluminum(or iron), but the flash used in the pictures was so bright it made them look like aluminum in the photos.

Sometimes I guess we get blinded by that killer sounding deal and just jump in.