Performer Heads

[AdamInChains]

I hear a lot of talk about how crappy the Performer intake is when compared to the RPM's. Are the performer heads very bad too?? My 65 coupe has a 347 that i want to be a performance street car. This car will probabally rarely hit a track. I want to have most of my power at the low end when i'm comin off the line. I have an AOD trans so i wont be seeing the high RPM's too much. Will i be losing much power using Performer heads instead of RPM's? And if so how much? My intake is Ford's equivilant to the RPM intake. Thanks!

 

[AdamInChains]

I also have a pretty mild ford cam.

 

[iskwezm]

i think the only difference is the RPM head isnt smog legal. I have those and put another 1000 bucks into them

 

[rbohm]

actually the people who say the performer intake is crap, are generally either full of it themselves, or used one with a mismatched engine build(they built an engine to run in the 2000-6500 rpm range, and dropped on a performer intake that works in the off idle to 4500 rpm range) and didnt get the results they were expecting. remember that when building any engine, the combination is the key. match components and you build a strong engine. mismatch the components and you get a dog.

as for the heads, the performer and performer rpm heads are the same, and even have the same options, except the performer heads have provision for egr, and air injection, whereas the rpm heads dont.

 

[mikemustang289]

The performer rpm heads have 2.02 valves. The performer heads are 1.90's

 

[D.Hearne]

The Performer intake is basically an aluminum copy of the stock 289/302 iron intake. The RPM intake is better in that it works well in the same lower rpms the performer does, but it's got a bit more plenum volume for higher rpm performance too. And it works the same as the older F4B/C9OX/Shelby Cobra/Ford A321 high rise aluminum intakes do, just here, the runners are unequal. The Performer intake isn't crap, but if you already have a stock 289/302 4 bbl intake (or even the 2 bbl) it's a waste of time and money, other than it's a tad lighter than the iron intake. A 347 with 1.94" intake valve heads will do just what he wants, keep the power lower down the rpm scale. That combined with a dual plane intake is the ticket here.

 

[Max Power]

The performer rpm heads have 2.02 valves. The performer heads are 1.90's

Performer RPM heads are available with either 2.02 intake valves or 1.90 intake valves.

 

[davishokies]

Rbohm is right on point here! It all depends on what you want your car to do and what rpm range your car will normally be driven in. Matched components are key! I took my stock rebuild 289 2V and put on the Performer intake, Performer 500cfm carb, Performer Heads with roller rockers, Performer-plus cam, lifters, timing chain, plus Tri-Y headers and an h-pipe, and let me tell you, it is a totally different car. Lots of low end torque in town and plenty of pull on the highway to pass slow movers.

 

[iskwezm]

Performer RPM heads are available with either 2.02 intake valves or 1.90 intake valves.

 

[D.Hearne]

Rbohm is right on point here! It all depends on what you want your car to do and what rpm range your car will normally be driven in. Matched components are key! I took my stock rebuild 289 2V and put on the Performer intake, Performer 500cfm carb, Performer Heads with roller rockers, Performer-plus cam, lifters, timing chain, plus Tri-Y headers and an h-pipe, and let me tell you, it is a totally different car. Lots of low end torque in town and plenty of pull on the highway to pass slow movers.

With an RPM intake, you'd find the same power down low plus more power at the other end of the rpm scale. The intake carb combo you picked could have been duplicated with you old 2 bbl intake with a Holley 500 cfm carb bolted to it.