OK, lets make it simple then. TA 350 SE heads with entry level porting. 10.5 to 11.0:1 SCR. Pick a cam, a roller if possible, that gets you to 8.0 DCR and can rev to 7500. Use an SP3 intake with an 850DP. Spin that bad boy to 7000 RPM. I don’t see how it doesn’t make 500 HP
Larry, I must disagree. A huge improvement? Consider this for sake of comparison. I got 342 HP 380 tq on the dyno. 9.6 compression, iron manifolds, Q-jet, and only 446 in/468ex lift, TA stage 1 valves. This aluminum head test is 481hp 430 tq. 10.5 comp, single plane intake, headers, holley carb and .600" lift. bigger valves. A gain of 139hp and 50ft/lbs. How much of this is the heads and how much is the cam/intake/headers/carb/valves? We've heard "huge improvement" and "game changer" applied to these heads and neither has been proven yet in my eyes. They do have much to offer and loads of potential. Someone needs to install and test these on a similarly built iron head motor to see the real world improvement before these kind of terms can be used to describe them. I think that's what people are looking for. Thanks again TA for offering us these heads as material to use in our builds. You are moving the bar.
Back when Buick released the Stage 2 455 head it was said to be worth 60 hp gain. Great, right? To get that 60 hp gain from the heads there was also; Higher compression pistons Larger cam B4B Edelbrock intake Holley carb Re-curved distributor Tubed headers Those heads brought us where we are today.
I've read this thread since the beginning, and let me inject a little insight from being into other brands of engines. No head manufacturer will tell you how much HP gain you're going to get from a set of heads. They can't. How do they know what combo it's going to be on? Look in a Jegs or Summit catalog and go to the cylinder head section. Do you see Brodix, World, TFS, AFR or any of the others saying "gain 40 hp!"? No. Now, you can go to builders like Jim or whoever else you choose after they've gotten their hands on a few sets and built a few engines with them, then they'll be able to tell you "Ok, with your combo and what you've got now, you can probably expect a gain of "X"." That's how it goes with everything, for every other brand. To expect the manufacturer to be able to tell you what a certain add on is worth is ridiculous, and if they overshoot it on one person's engine, they'll never hear the end of it. Example: Pete has a wild 350 sitting on a stand with good stuff like a big roller cam, 2" headers, a single plane with an 850 on top, all the goods except for he's got stone stock heads sitting on it because he ran out of money. Pete bolts a set on after dynoing it the way it was and gains 70 hp by swapping a set of the new aluminum heads on..... Johnny has a mild little 350 with full ported irons he got from some guy that knew what he was doing and they're probably overkill for his combo the way it is. Johnny really wants the new aluminum heads and takes his car to a chassis dyno and gets it dyno'd, goes home, swaps on his pretty new heads, and comes back a week later to the same dyno. Johnny is pretty P.O.'d when he discovers he's gained 2 hp and lost 5 peak ft.-lbs..... Now, what HP gain should TA claim for their heads? 70 hp gained? 2 hp gained? They can't rightfully claim anything. You have to wait for builders to build and test, then you'll get your answers from builders, not the manufacturers. Only some company like Edelbrock that makes everything for a combo will tell you what HP that combo makes. As far as recipe engines and porting and whatnot go..... You guys that are leading the porting of the iron heads want to share your port designs with everyone else? Want to make a page with nothing but porting instructions so Joe Blow down the street can reap the benefits of all your testing, tuning, long nights in the shop and long days at the strip? Probably not. But in other brands the guys do, and so should you if you really want to get these engines out there running their best and showing what a Buick 350 can do, not just what YOU can do. I ported my heads on my big engine literally by following instructions the leading head porter for 385 series Ford engines put out there for everyone to see, complete with flow charts for different stages. For something like $120 he'll send you a cut section of a head featuring 1 intake and 1 exhaust port he did personally, so you can copy it to your iron heads at home. You guys want to take the time and effort to do that to help your fellow SBB enthusiasts? Get on a team, fellas, and help each other out, or say "Too bad, I want the baddest SBB out there and you can figure it out on your own. I don't care if you're getting your a$$ handed to you by all the Chevys, Fords, Dodges, Pontiacs, etc. because I'm not...." Ask yourselves: Are you in competition with each other for who has the baddest small block Buick? Or are you on a team in competition with everyone else, to make the SBB better than any other small block out there? I can tell you how the Ford guys feel, and that's why they stomp the hell out of everything at the Engine Master's Challenge damn near every year. As I said, just a few observations from a guy who frequents quite a few other engine forums and not just this one. What you're expecting for information isn't realistic, unless one of you steps up and puts it out there first.
If I wasn't so deep in my 455 swap, I would build the hell out of the 355 block sitting in my garage. Maybe someday, if I can convince my wife that I have to keep the block that long lol.
Didn't happen in one day, Mike hahahaha......but I did start at the beginning when I joined here and read all the pages over 3 years or whatever by reading every now and then
That was for your insightful post. Not because you've read all the pages. I have read them all too. I suppose it looks that way because of where I cut your post.
There is no doubt in my mind that these heads will be a huge improvement IF you take advantage of the extra head flow and purpose build an engine to your needs. Aluminum needs a full number higher in SCR to start. The 350 has 105 cubes less displacement so bigger cams may give up some drive ability. If you are building a race car, not much of a concern. I believe TA was building a street engine and trying to see what is possible from the get go in a typical build. Now guys have to step up to the plate and start experimenting. To put that entirely on Mike T is unfair. Like I said, these heads are a huge investment for most. No big deal for me but guys with family have other more important priorities and I get that. Mike T did his homework on these heads. I know eventually we will see just how good they work especially if someone builds a motor around the head flow characteristics.
I will post my build when it’s done and eventually have dyno results when there’s $$ in the budget. But beings my block is in queue at the machinist it will be a while.
And once you get those aluminum heads installed, then you can start over getting that well balanced engine, well balanced and tuned again. When we first did the SP-1 intake for the 455 we removed the B4B on my fathers car after a pass, installed the SP-1, made many passes. Car slowed down. I was very upset to say the least. I told my dad that all the Buick folks like Richard Lasseter were right. The single plane doesn't work on a Buick. My dad said, Michael I don't think it's the intake, we need to work with this again, there are differences here now with how the car is running. With the B4B we had little to no tire rotation. With the SP-1, it was turning the tires. So we took the tires off the wagon, mind you this when the wagon had a 350 in it. My tire was a little taller and narrower than my fathers. Anyway put those on and the car went faster than it had ever gone. We had run these tires before on my dads car but had changed to his current tires, with the shorter wider tire his car was faster. The power curve changed when the SP-1 intake was installed and it the liked the taller/narrower tire. So just changing heads may not give you an accurate end result. It didn't for us at least in the case of the SP-1 vs B4b.
My experience with the TA Stage1SE heads is this. My engine was all iron, stock unported Stage1 heads. Iron intake, Q-jet, KB118 cam, MT headers and 2 1/2" exhaust with 3.42's out back. Actual measured compression, 9.4:1. Car was almost 4200 lbs with me, empty trunk and 1/2 tank of gas. Best was 13.22 @ 101 MPH. Installed Gessler level 2 TA Stage1SE heads milled .040" with 59cc chambers. That gave me 10.4:1 SCR. Installed an Edelbrock Performer intake at the same time, no other changes. Car went 12.50's at 108 MPH, about 3/4 of a second and 7 MPH. Installed SP1 intake and 1000 DP carburetor, went 12.11 at 112 MPH. Except for the increase of SCR, and conditions, that's about as close as I could get to back to back testing. Not saying the 350 heads will produce the same improvement with 105 cubes less, but I am expecting big things.
I'm sure these heads are a big improvement over iron 350 heads it will be nice to know that out of box horse power hopefully it's 30+ . Back in the 80s I was running my 70 stage one with KB 10 to 1 Forged pistons KB 107 cam, untouched iron heads, Edelbrock B4B, 1000 TQ, 149 KB converter, 4.30 gears car would run consistent 1260s at 106 so I put my unported iron stage two heads on no other changes car went 11.84 at 111.50.
How much they add will depend on the overall combo. Might gain little or nothing on something, might gain 80 hp on another. Putting them on a stone stock good high compression engine will probably get 10 hp. Putting them on a built engine choked down by it's stockish heads they might gain that 80. As I said, nobody knows, only people who build engines and dyno them back to back will be able to accurately surmise what they'll gain on a given combo after many, many test engines have been tried.... You guys that want to know what these heads will gain are the only ones that have the answers. Get your engine dyno'd or run your car down the 1/4 and report back with your findings like every other group has to do in the beginning when something new comes out.
I ported 1 intake runner because I heard that some people were pre judging these 350 heads. What I got with a valve job, blending the VJ into the Bowl which I might add is a real nicely Designed Bowl, reshaped the Guide, shape the ST radius and the radius around the push rod These are the Flow#s I got. on my first crack at it. 1)66 2)122 3)178 4)226 5)268 .550)277 6)286
