H/C/I kit or buy seperatly?

tacoman

New Member
May 31, 2004
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I was just wondering if you guys recommend going with a H/C/I kit or buying different heads, cam, and intake from different manufactures. I know that people seem to like the Trick Flow kits. What kit or combo do you recommend going with? This is on a stock 5.0 aside from flowmasters and K&N filter. Hoping to plan out what I want to do so that over the winter it can all get put in. Any help would be great, thanks.
 
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Different manuafactures is no big deal, in fact most of the best combo's use many different manufactures. The key is to keep the sizes matching. You don't want to put a big intake on a set of small heads, you'll loose bottom end and won't see anymore top end, while a set of big heads will be choked by a small intake. The cam should come last and be matched to get the most out of the heads and intake, as well as exaust.

The reason most say to do the H/C/I all at one time is because of the matching theory. If you just did heads, you would notice a gain but might feel dissapointed because the intake would seriously choke the system. If you just did an intake you would see a little gain but actually might loose bottom end. Just doing a cam now would only hurt performance most likley.
 
piece them together. the key is having all the components matching. sure you can go out and buy a $1300 pair of heads and a $700 intake and an off the shelf cam, but if they dont work together it's pointless. probably the biggest mistake people make is just buying parts randomly.
 
Doesn't buying the kit save some money? $2050 for heads, intake, cam, valve covers, rockers, pushrods, timing chain & gears, all needed gaskets seems like a really good price. But I haven't sat down and added it all up to see. Might save enough to get a better cam and TF stage 1 on ebay.
 
I was set on the trick flow kit, then got a good deal on some tw heads with double valve springs, and rockers. Ive been building the motor up to my liking ever since, and im glad I didnt get a kit. Im also going to be making alot more power now compared to what I would have if I got the kit.
 
Either way will work. A kit takes a little of the guess work out of finding parts that will work well together... At least it gives a good base to judge other parts you might want to add or change out. AFR makes an awsome head so if you go that route you are gonna have to spec out a build. If you don't go with the TFS kit(which is great), get some AFR 165s, GT40 or Edelbrock or TFS intake(preference), custom grind cam and some Crane Gold roller rockers. You would be set.... depending if your budget allows.
Kevin
 
since when do you get valve covers or rockers or a timing chain or anything like that when you buy a kit??? im pretty sure they just tell you to re-use your stock crap and at the least replace the timing chain.
 
Thanks for the advice guys. I was looking to go with a kit mainly because of the ease of just having to buy the kit and not worry about things working together. If I can read up some more and create a combo I like then I might go with that instead.
 
Some of it depends on what you want, and how much you want to spend. The TF kit will get you to about 300 rwhp and 320 rwtq if you have all the other supporting stuff.
If you want more, then piece a setup together, but its gonna cost more. I think the TF is a really good bang for the buck for up to 300 rwhp.
 
stangdude22 said:
Hey black 93, have you gotten that thing on a dyno? If so how much hp tq?


No sadly I havent gotten it on th dyno yet. My shop that I go threw as been packed lately and the dyno we use was down the other day so.... If you want when I do get it done I'll send ya the info on the numbers. Im guessing it should make alittle over 310Hp and not sure on the tq.