Well Brad
the 'Best Head" debate can quickly turn into a religious war
I personally like the TrickFlow but interestingly enough, the 427w guys have mainly favored the Victor Jr. heads. Patrick Roth, RGINN, David Truelove and xcessive1 all used Edelbrock Victor Jrs. One nice thing about the Edelbrock head is that I believe they use a steal thread insert for the header bolts. I know I stripped one of my bolts in my soft aluminum.
Jim's Gems did a 396 Ford Crate and did the AFR 185 switch and got 482HP (just a tad under 500). Most of the 427w guys who have been on the dyno are above the 500 mark.
Here are some interesting head testing reports that might help make up your mind. It is a little tricky since no test really covers all the heads so you have to mix and match tests.
HEAD TO HEAD
Ford Muscle tests and ton of heads in three categories. They have recently placed the article behind a subscription wall but some of the charts still work.
http://www.fordmuscle.com/archives/2000/05/heads/
and Google caches pages
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache...tml+&hl=en</a>
In my opinion, TrickFlow wins the 'Street' category and the Trickflow-R wins the 'Strip'
Others have argued that the Victor Jr Head is not a Strip head...and therefore, outperforms the TrickFlow Street, which can been seen in the numbers. Edelbrock themselve list the Victor Jr under "race heads"
http://www.edelbrock.com/automotive/raceheadford.html
Using the tests above, it would seem that the Victor Jr outflows the TrickFlow twisted wedge and is a awesome flowing head that several 427w owner's have had much success with. They have stated that the head is driveable on the street. I would be curious to see how the TrickFlow-R would perform on a 427w? I am not sure if this would be too radical for the street or not.
Where does AFR fit into this? 5.0 magazine did an article from Westechperformance ...the same folks that did the Bolt on 75HP story on the AFR 185s. Here are both stories
HAVING OUR HEADS EXAMINED
http://www.westechperformance.com/pa.../headsmag.html
75 HP BOLT ON
http://www.westechperformance.com/pa...s/75hpmag.html
In the heads article, they have a page with airflow numbers on the AFR 185s
From these numbers, it looks like the AFR185 beats the Twisted Wedge in intake but loses in exhaust. I would consider these heads equivalent. The AFR185 then would be ranked slightly under the Victor Jrs.
I haven't been on the dyno yet but West Tech is 15 minutes from my house and I might have to get on their chassis dyno once they complete it. I'll pass along the numbers when I get them.
...just a second!
I have a thrid test for you.
Panhandle Performce, who are very much into HEADS also conducted their own flow tests in SuperFord may 1999. Panhandle are big on porting and sell heads in 3 stages. Stage one being pretty well factory or out of the box. Here are the results
TrickFlow R once again takes the cake. This time the numbers are close to the Victor Jrs. This would lead me to believe that you might be able to get away with these heads on the street.
hope this info helps
Andy
http://www.cobralads.com