The Procomp Experiment

[andyl]

Well, I know I'll get some bites from haters, and I know this will make me a social outcast, but ... I've decided to have a bit of an experiment with Procomp bits, lol.

My stock 1978 casting 302W has annoying non-ULP compatible iron heads, stock cast manifold, 2 Barrel Holley, mild cam and is not the most exciting drive to say the least. It is however quiet and appears sound so far, so I figure it has enough life for a simple bolt on freshen up.

I have aspirations of putting something properly lumpy in it once the wife has stopped threatening wallet revenge having just bought the cobra recently ( would love one of those all alloy 427 crate Windsors ) so in the mean time I want to take it slow and just wake up the current motor a little while I get the suspension, brakes & diff where I want them to be.

So I have succumbed to the lure of the cheap bits from Procomp for the little Windsor as not much I'd buy for this motor would end up on the final power plant anyway so I don't want to spend more than I need to. I figure it will all be in the bin after a while anyway, if I get a year or so of better performance I'll be happy.

I've checked out a lot of sites and just cant find that supposed landslide of people who have bought the more recent heads and have horror stories, there are some, but mostly old posts with more recent comments markedly better. Most of the bad feedback is from people who have *not* tried them simply saying in their opinion they are s..t, but there are people who claim to have actually run them and say while they are not of the calibre of AFR/CHI/Brodix/RHS etc, they are basically ok as a stock bolt on.

I have to confess, a big part of this is morbid curiosity at whether such cheap bits would even fit together ok as a straight bolt on. Part of it is knowing if they don't and it all falls to bits I've got a good excuse to go the full hog sooner

So I picked up what would seem to be a pretty bloody cheap Procomp package consisting of;

Procomp Alloy Heads w/ 2.055/1.60 stainless valves, bronze guides, 60cc chambers, 3 angle cut, chrome moly retainers
Procomp 4 Barrel Dual Plane Manifold
Procomp Guide Plates
Procomp Screw in studs
Procomp Roller Rockers w/ Posi Locks
Procomp Sheet metal rocker covers
ATR 5" tacho (this will go in the ute, too damn ugly for the cobra)

This lot cost $1075AUD (plus $100 post) and arrived in good condition, crazy price me thinks for all this gear if it works ok.

I'll be using a 750 vac sec 4150 holley I have (probably a bit big but with vac sec should work ok). The only other thing I'm toying with at this stage is to do something on the exhaust side. It has the std windsor log jobs so I might have a hunt for something there but very little space with the tight clearance to the footwells so there may not be a simple cheap option.

I have no idea what HP it makes now, I suspect sub 200 and I'm not expecting a miracle but it will be fun finding out if bolting a bunch of cheap stuff together makes much difference to it.

It matters not if it all goes bad, I'm treating it as a fun experiment to answer the question first hand. Anyone care to rank the chance of a good outcome ? *expects a lot of zero percent comments*, lol.

Also any actual experiences from people who have actually run this gear would be appreciated, as would be any tips on problems found along the way I should watch out for.

Cheers,

-Andy

[blykins]

I've had experience with Procomp stuff.

A customer brought me a set of heads to use for a 383 SBC build. They ended up flowing the same as factory cast iron heads and to beat that, the valve cover holes were not in the right spot. They were offset towards the valves so that the valve covers rubbed the rocker arms.

I've got a few engine builder buddies that have tried their distributors, rocker arms, and intakes. The distributors died, one rocker arm failed and spit the roller tip out, and the intakes were porous.

Check the valve job on the heads, make sure the valves sit down against the seat and the valves are cut with angles that match the seats. I'd totally disassemble them and go through them.

[boxhead]

Anyl, I have never used there stuff but have only heard of bad reports.

Putting these parts in your motor will probably cost you more than buying reputable parts in the first place, as you will most likely do subsequent damage and have to start from scratch, but I will wish you good luck.

[Merv and Sharon]

Good luck with the job Andy. I got all my parts through Summit and MassFlo in the Us and it was twice that price. Maybe those heads could be polished a bit as well to improve flow? One has to try ...

[David Hodgson]

Andy, can't comment on the quality of the Procomp stuff, but you won't see a lot of improvement without a cam change while it's apart. For your application somehting about 270 - 280 deg, advertised would be ok. As you said, you will need to look at exhaust improvement as well. Even a set of reasonable 'shorties'.

[07cob]

Andy

I know of one punter who has fitted Procomp gear (heads and cam) and has been very happy with the results. Cheap and plenty of power.

Your attitude towards the *experiment* will ensure it is successful, regardless of the results!!

Looking forward to hearing how it all goes together.

Geof

[CobraV8]

I bought a Nitrous plate on ebay a few weeks ago. It recently arrived.

The plate has a rough surface, the spray bar holes point to the side instead of slightly down. The description said it uses NOS brand fittings and jets-the jets have plenty of play in the bores, and the threads are apparently not -3 AN. It would fit, but until it is completely tightened up the nut has play on the fitting.

The fittings on the plate were painted red and blue to make them look like anodized.

After re-reading the description it turned out the manufacturer is Pro Comp.

Also I bought a muffler for my daily driver on ebay. Had to do the install twice and also pay for another muffler, that actually IS OEM quality. The China muffler made the exhaust louder than running with no muffler at all.

Bottom line: this China sh!t is sh!t. Also it will cost you your job one day. Don't buy it, even if the price is tempting.

Simon

[Clois Harlan]

I built a 347 stroker engine for a friend of mine and he opted for the Pro Comp 215 heads, Torker II intake, complete Ford Racing roller lifters and push rods with Sig Erson 1.6:1 roller rockers, Scat steel crank, Eagle forged I beam rods and 9.5:1 pistons. The cam is a Comp HYDRAULIC Roller cam 540 lift and 290 duration @ 106 lobe seperation. All that with a Holley 750 on top and MSD distributor. We dyno'd the engine last night and we were making 475 hp and 402 torque on pump gas (91 octane) at 6500 RPM. I think the thing will wind past 7000 RPM comfortably. Who knows what it would do with solid lifters and race fuel. We pulled out a set of 12.50 :1 Venolia Forged Alum Domed Pistons and Alum Rods for the Eagle lower compression ratio so we could run on pump gas. I can only imagine how much hp that thing would make with the original set up.



Clois

[andyl]

Thanks for the comments everyone. As Geof rightly said it really doesn't matter because it's an experiment, it may turn out as simon's experience did with their stuff or like geof's mate, that's the nature of experimentation. If nothing else, good or bad, I'll know from direct experience if there is any merit in them at all.

The bits are already here to try it out so they are going on. I will however take Brents advice and have them pulled down first and checked. I will be asking a mate to do my work for me as he has done for years, he's spent decades building ford motors and I'm sure he wont sugar coat whatever he finds and I'm more than happy to share whatever comes with the forum. Thanks to David re the cam advice and yes you are right with regards that. I have no idea what's in it now but we'll assess it to see whats what.

Not sure when it will go together, all depends on my mates availability, hes working away at the moment. My (ametuer) observations so far is that it all looks reasonable, pretty dodgy die grinder work squaring up the exhaust ports. The intake valves are set right in to the roof of the combustion chamber and look bound to suffer shrouding to me (again I'm no expert though). The casting inside the ports isn't the worst I've seen though. Where the intake valve is cut in the material thickness where it has been cut into the sparkplug hole looks a bit light and I'm thinking might end up prone to cracking. lol perhaps a year is optimistic ;P

I'll try and post some photos too;










Cheers,

-Andy

[andyl]

Originally Posted by Clois Harlan

I built a 347 stroker engine for a friend of mine and he opted for the Pro Comp 215 heads, Torker II intake, complete Ford Racing roller lifters and push rods with Sig Erson 1.6:1 roller rockers, Scat steel crank, Eagle forged I beam rods and 9.5:1 pistons. The cam is a Comp HYDRAULIC Roller cam 540 lift and 290 duration @ 106 lobe seperation. All that with a Holley 750 on top and MSD distributor. We dyno'd the engine last night and we were making 475 hp and 402 torque on pump gas (91 octane) at 6500 RPM. I think the thing will wind past 7000 RPM comfortably. Who knows what it would do with solid lifters and race fuel. We pulled out a set of 12.50 :1 Venolia Forged Alum Domed Pistons and Alum Rods for the Eagle lower compression ratio so we could run on pump gas. I can only imagine how much hp that thing would make with the original set up.

Great info Clois, thanks. Encourging too, thats great horsepower from a 347 as far as im concerned.

[Wbulk]

Here is a good article on a test of the heads.

http://www.musclemustangfastfords.co...est/index.html

[andyl]

Originally Posted by Wbulk

Here is a good article on a test of the heads.

http://www.musclemustangfastfords.co...est/index.html

Thanks for that, and yeah I did find that article when searching for opinions on them but to be honest I took ones like that as possibly being sponsored or otherwise influenced by ads in the publications. I couldn't find a magazine article that knocked them at all, only forums and in most cases people who had not actually bought the heads, just 'heard bad things'. Hence the reason for me deciding to find out for myself.

Looking at the photos in that story the combustion chamber photo looks identical to mine.

-Andy

[vector1]

here's a discussion going on now that might be helpful.

http://speedtalk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=21254

[andyl]

Just noticed: Lovin the big chunk of alloy above and right of the head in the top photo, only just noticed it. Looked through the box and found an even bigger one. This alone totally backs up Brent's advice as far as I'm concerned, these cant be ready to go out of the box heads.

I also found the second head had 2 exhaust ports that are way of square on one side and would probably cause overlap to the exhaust headers. There was also damage to the edge of the faces on both heads shown in the little circles below and another nice big chunk of alloy floating around from the milling. This one was laying around in the top near the valve springs, circled in first photo too.



Here's a closeup of the odd port shape, note the bulge on the left side and lovely die grinder work!



Cheers,

Andy

[andyl]

David: to give you an idea of how much of a problem exhaust improvement would be, see photos. Not a lot of room to move there. This is part of the appeal of not spending significantly on this motor and going for the the higher deck height of the 351 windsor block, along with most performance alloy heads having a higher exhaust port position than standard, I'm hoping I have more room to move because the bay widens out quickly as you go higher. Its almost like the bay was designed for a 351W instead of a 302W. With all this in mind I don't know that I'll be doing much on the exhaust side and that will certainly limit any improvement, possibly to just a weight saving and unleaded compatibility and I'm happy enough with that. In any case I think I'll leave the exhaust stuff until round 2 if there is one.




-Andy

[andyl]

Hmm, no photos this time, I'll try again. If not there on this post it may be a limiting thing of the forum I guess;

[blykins]

Are there shims underneath the springs?

I would imagine that the install heights are the numbers that are written on the sides of the heads.

That one head has .035" difference between the shortest and tallest height. Hopefully they corrected it as .030" can be a big difference in spring pressures. I would make sure that some of the valves are not sunken into the seats.

[andyl]

Originally Posted by blykins

Are there shims underneath the springs?

I would imagine that the install heights are the numbers that are written on the sides of the heads.

That one head has .035" difference between the shortest and tallest height. Hopefully they corrected it as .030" can be a big difference in spring pressures. I would make sure that some of the valves are not sunken into the seats.

Yep every spring has a shim (although nothing yet to say if they are for show or actually vary in thickness) and the valves are definitely not sunken into the seats, if anything they seem to be sitting a little proud so I'll be getting my guy to make sure previous warnings about the angles on the valve not matching the seats isn't the case.

Exhaust valves and intakes seem to sit at very similar heights at the rocker end but the exhaust valve springs appear compressed more because the collet sits further down the stem. See pics;



I have no idea if this is even unusual, again that's for my builder to check for me.

-Andy

[andyl]

Unfortunately this 'experiment' wont be going ahead now. The stock windsor they were going onto next week dropped an oil pump drive today on the highway and spun a bearing.

When the dollar dumped I bought a FR Z347 crate at the old rate also which is standing by so that's the way to go now. I was going to build it up anyway to run at QLD raceway at the end of the month for little more than morbid curiosity now. The most annoying part is I have a bright shiny new (well black anyway) ARP chrome moly oil pump drive to go in also which may have saved it had it got there in time. I wont be making the QLD RCWY meeting now.

In closing off the thread, a bit more feedback on Procomp, or at least AT Racing (the supplier), the hold up getting it together has been that the kit had the wrong manifold. It was ok for stock heads but the runners were miles too small for the quite big ports, the meat of the runners would barely even cover them! So I managed (after much kicking and screaming) to negotiate an exchange for a Victor Jnr copy called the 'Hurricane' which was much better but it took weeks to get it all sorted out and to get the new manifold in hand. Anyone looking at a packaged kit from AT Racing, check the manifold is the 'Hurricane' single plane not the stealth dual plane or you'll need custom gaskets to put it together and even then it will be a waste as the runners are no bigger than standard and would waste any extra flow given by the heads.

-Andy

[PoppyMod]

Originally Posted by andyl

Well, I know I'll get some bites from haters, and I know this will make me a social outcast, but ... I've decided to have a bit of an experiment with Procomp bits, lol.

My stock 1978 casting 302W has annoying non-ULP compatible iron heads, stock cast manifold, 2 Barrel Holley, mild cam and is not the most exciting drive to say the least. It is however quiet and appears sound so far, so I figure it has enough life for a simple bolt on freshen up.

I have aspirations of putting something properly lumpy in it once the wife has stopped threatening wallet revenge having just bought the cobra recently ( would love one of those all alloy 427 crate Windsors ) so in the mean time I want to take it slow and just wake up the current motor a little while I get the suspension, brakes & diff where I want them to be.

So I have succumbed to the lure of the cheap bits from Procomp for the little Windsor as not much I'd buy for this motor would end up on the final power plant anyway so I don't want to spend more than I need to. I figure it will all be in the bin after a while anyway, if I get a year or so of better performance I'll be happy.

I've checked out a lot of sites and just cant find that supposed landslide of people who have bought the more recent heads and have horror stories, there are some, but mostly old posts with more recent comments markedly better. Most of the bad feedback is from people who have *not* tried them simply saying in their opinion they are s..t, but there are people who claim to have actually run them and say while they are not of the calibre of AFR/CHI/Brodix/RHS etc, they are basically ok as a stock bolt on.

I have to confess, a big part of this is morbid curiosity at whether such cheap bits would even fit together ok as a straight bolt on. Part of it is knowing if they don't and it all falls to bits I've got a good excuse to go the full hog sooner

So I picked up what would seem to be a pretty bloody cheap Procomp package consisting of;

Procomp Alloy Heads w/ 2.055/1.60 stainless valves, bronze guides, 60cc chambers, 3 angle cut, chrome moly retainers
Procomp 4 Barrel Dual Plane Manifold
Procomp Guide Plates
Procomp Screw in studs
Procomp Roller Rockers w/ Posi Locks
Procomp Sheet metal rocker covers
ATR 5" tacho (this will go in the ute, too damn ugly for the cobra)

This lot cost $1075AUD (plus $100 post) and arrived in good condition, crazy price me thinks for all this gear if it works ok.

I'll be using a 750 vac sec 4150 holley I have (probably a bit big but with vac sec should work ok). The only other thing I'm toying with at this stage is to do something on the exhaust side. It has the std windsor log jobs so I might have a hunt for something there but very little space with the tight clearance to the footwells so there may not be a simple cheap option.

I have no idea what HP it makes now, I suspect sub 200 and I'm not expecting a miracle but it will be fun finding out if bolting a bunch of cheap stuff together makes much difference to it.

It matters not if it all goes bad, I'm treating it as a fun experiment to answer the question first hand. Anyone care to rank the chance of a good outcome ? *expects a lot of zero percent comments*, lol.

Also any actual experiences from people who have actually run this gear would be appreciated, as would be any tips on problems found along the way I should watch out for.

Cheers,

-Andy

Hi Andy,

Last year, I moved up from 348 RWHP to 392RWHP and have a nice set of windsor JRs (nicely modified) an matching roller Hydr cam and Eddy 600 that would "wake up" your 302W. PM for details. BTW under 1000 USD and quality stuff.