edelbrock cyl heads for fe

[wrench87]

on a 445 stroker for the street how much cyl head do i actually need?, i like keith crafts stage II heads but they cost 2500.00 , how much work is needed to get 500 hp out of a 390 stroker using the edelbrock heads what could i get away with ?just looking for opinions.

[kanuck]

Stage one heads for 1500.00 will get you 500 hp even with a mild cam.
Thanks Dean

[wrench87]

kanuck, have you ever delt with flatlander racing in nh?, they have edelbrock heads in stage 1,2 3 but they lookm like they use the stock springs from edelbrock , wich i hear are not that great.

[kanuck]

HI Wrench word to the wise never buy ebrok heads assembled, get them bare and fill them with better components not much more in price. FE specialties has a package around 1500.00 also. as far as flatlander just another box store.
Thanks Dean.

[Barry_R]

For 500 HP on a 445 you should at least take the out of box heads apart and check them out. We all have some sort of entry level package to tune these up. Invest a couple hours detailing the bowls and re-touch the valve job. They're really not all that bad - its just that they react so favorably to modest enhancements - Edelbrock left a lot "on the table" with these.

We have a 500HP 445 going into a Car Craft article in a couple months. Pretty straightforward - Ed heads, stroker kit, Comp solid stick, RPM intake....

[wrench87]

i find that the charts for the stroker heads always show the big gains with the larger valve head, because i am running a 4.080 bore i am limited to the 2.09 intake valve what is the diff between the out of box head and say your x head you have on your site?.

[RICK LAKE]

wrench 87 The price for a set of heads with good port work at $2,500.00 is not a bad price. There are a couple of guys here and on the FE forum that can do the same job. Was told that Les Schmader does great work at a good price. The intake manifold you might want to send out to have the ports flow matched. On some manifold there is a 30-40 cfm differents between ports. SGT. Joe on the FE forum does this for couple hundred dollars. The most important thing is to match the power bands to the parts. Manifold, cam, heads, carb cfm, and the biggest killer is the side pipes. You can loose from 20-60 hp with a set of street side pipes. Most of the manufactures are now giving a choice of pipes. I have a street set and race set. You can swap them in 15 minutes both sides. Mine are slide tubes, some are bolt and nut setups, someone now sells clamp ring setup. Stop being so concerned about 500HP. You should look at the 500 ft of torque, this is what's going to move your car forward, the HP is what comes in at topend to keep the car at that speed. Not sure what you are going to do with the car but the bigger is not always better, Some of the guys have gone from big cams to smaller cams and are alot happier with the cars. Excaliper is one to start with. Same motor with small cam, car is ownly .2-.3 slower racing, but the drivibility was improved 70%. Send him an e-mail and ask. I went with a bigger stroker motor and hydro roller cam, the torque is about 50-70ft more and the car is a handful. Have not got to the dyno for the numbers but looking at about 460-470 hp and about 550 to 560 ft of tork. This is getting to the safe limits of a cobra for street driven and racing. Over this and you better start getting some driving lessons IMO. I have 335 pilot tires on the back of the car and got sideways in turn 4 at gateway from the power in my car. The pro guys where leaving 2 black marks and power siding. We have had guys and girls be killed on this forum, cobras are not a toy. They don't have ABS, traction control, (unless you use your foot or an MSD box), some cobra don't have P/S, but both SB and BB have plenty of power to haul A&&. Rick L.