Help me decide TFS TW or AFR 165 heads

TFS TW heads or AFR 165 heads


  • Total voters
    39
I am an AFR owner and highly recommend them. Not only for the Hp gain but for overall quality. I was a previous owner of Edelbrock heads and was not happy with their performance or the quality.
 
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zenboy99 said:
I've heard that the Trick Flow heads have a better spring package out of box compared the the AFR's. I'm pretty sure MM&FF said the same thing in their cylinder head test article

I ordered my AFR's from Ed Curtis about two weeks ago, and they were $1325 plus $157 for the spring package upgrade. Pricey, but I'm a firm believer that you get what you pay for.

Valvetrain guys - What do I need to do to check my geometry when I install everything? The heads and cam will be going on as soon as I get them.
 
VIPERn94Five-0 said:
over the time ive been here on Stangnet based on convos with Paul, and seeing other users on here, and a couple emails ive sent to Ed Curtis (runs FTI) ive been sold on the 165's or the 185's depending on plans....from the power numbers ive seen...the AFR heads combined with an FTI cam do not always produce the MOST power...but by far the most USABLE power...and that is the most important...its not how much you MAKE but how much can you USE....and ive seen AFR headed cars give broader power bands more than a few times.....



Anthony

As one of those AFR/FTI guys I agree and will add this.

Torque that comes on early, stays flat & longer makes for a fun street car.

That was my goal for the STREET car I now have.

We are talking heavy SN95 with all the nice things like tunes, cold air, power steering, bla, bla, bla, AND with the exception of a little cam lope, it behaves like a stocker.

I'll take that over a high hp but peaky tq curve, any day for my CURRENT STREET car.

I've had both types of cars and each one will fly.

Now, if I had a 2800 lb. fox coupe I most likely would go for the latter example.

At times I think we forget that a combo one guy says is good ***
A different guy says *** No it ain't

I mean AFR's or TW's
Ed's cam or OTS cam

Is it just me or do sometimes, some of these threads seem, well, they don't accomplish anything or help anyone :shrug:

I'm done rambling on now!

Later
Grady
 
clang5oh said:
i wouldnt count brodix out. my opinion on them is they are the most underated 5.0 head. easily competes with afr.

Yep, that's why they are right next to AFR in every magazine head test. Oh, wait...

Seriously, I'm not saying Brodix or Canfield don't make a good head, but you sure don't see or hear nearly as much about them. My thoughts are if they "easily compete" with AFR then a lot more people would be using them.

How many Brodix combos are there in here? Bueller? Bueller? ;)
 
Jordan... wher ehave you been? I haven't seen you on here in a while, and I agree with your statements.

Canfiled used to be THE head for a serious setup, but they had a lot of issues with quality and what-not from what I hear and that's why they fell by the way side.
 
Killercanary said:
Jordan... wher ehave you been? I haven't seen you on here in a while, and I agree with your statements.

Canfiled used to be THE head for a serious setup, but they had a lot of issues with quality and what-not from what I hear and that's why they fell by the way side.

Hey Paul,

Thanks for asking; I've been around. I'm still usually on the boards a few times a week but I mainly post in 4.6 Talk and HOP now. I still scan this forum for interesting topics because I don't want to miss hearing about our Florida boys getting those turbo setups done. :drool:

But overall, my participation in this forum decreased after I got my heads/cam/longtubes installed. I realized that I was happy with the performance of the car (for now) and that spending a lot of time in this forum made me want to spend more money. :( I'm pretty much at a standstill as far as power mods go, so the only thing I could do from here to get a major gain in HP would be to get some kind of forced induction or save up for a better H/C setup which I do NOT want to do on this engine considering it has over 100k and I've already been into the top end once anyway for the Thumper setup. I may start saving up for a stroker and some AFR 185's...who knows. It's awfully tempting to save up for a KB or S-Trim on this car, but I'm not aware of any really good tuning places around here and we all know a good safe tune is extremely important with a power adder. I also wonder if it is a good idea to dump several grand more into a car that is roughly 10 years old now, because even while the engine may be freshened, the other parts of the car will continue to age and fail (tranny, rear end, etc.). It is then that I tell myself I will pay this car off and leave it as is, and then buy a 99+ when it's paid off and stick a Mongoose blower kit on it since I now see how expensive the bolt-on route can be while providing minimal gains. Our cars respond fairly well to bolt-ons but it is so easy to rack up 2-3 thousand bucks in bolt-ons that will give you just a few ponies compared to a blower or good H/C setup which will yield much more power for equivalent money.

I could do suspension right now--I hear adding $1000-$1500 in well chosen suspension parts can drop your times as much or more than adding power mods for the same amount of money--but once again I don't want to dump that much money into this car unless I'm sure I'm going to keep it for a long time. It would blow to sink another $1500 into the car and then sell it 2 years later and not see any return on that $1500, ya know? There's mods for ya in a nutshell. :rolleyes:

So how's your Fox coming along? Have you been doing anything to it or mainly concentrating on saving up some dough for the SN95? I know you always mention how the bottom end in it has taken a beating.
 
clang5oh said:
i have 2 friends with 88 mustang gt's. holley systemax intakes 9lbs vortechs on both. one with the afr's and one with brodix. 1/4 mile times are slower with brodix but only by a couple 10ths of a second.

Any time you have 2 cars though, there are still many variables even if the 2 cars have similar setups. The only real way to test would be to run the Brodix headed car down the track and then swap ONLY the heads to a set of AFR's and run that same car down the same track with the same driver, under the same conditions. Or vice versa for the AFR headed car.

Curious, what do the Brodix heads cost? Unless they are considerably cheaper than AFR's, I'd be tempted to just get AFR's and call it a day knowing that I had the best small block 302 head available. :nice:
 
the AFR 165 or the Twisted wedge with the 170 runner volume

the twisted wedge out flows the AFR in the low and mid lift ranges yet the AFR takes the high lift trophy.

your cam spends most of its time in teh mid lift ranges

whatever you do, match the cam correctly and you will make right about the same power with each. (case by case)

If you are going with a mild cam, I say get the Trick flows.

my roomates fox body made 315 at the wheels with all the mods I have, only difference being trick flows :dunno:

personally I think I'm gonna save my money and do a GT40P setup after seeing some dynoes which are better than most all of the AFR/FTI setups on this forum. :)
plus I am on a budget
 
95snoozer said:
personally I think I'm gonna save my money and do a GT40P setup after seeing some dynoes which are better than most all of the AFR/FTI setups on this forum. :)
plus I am on a budget

Huh? So exactly how many SN95's are running 12.31 in the 1/4 with GT-40P's like Killercanary is with AFR's? I've seen GT-40P setups that are as fast as some Edelbrock Performer headed guys, but in no way do they compare to AFR's--much less an AFR/FTI setup!

This is a perfect example of why dynos don't tell the whole story. I've seen GT-40P setups that have more rwhp than Killercanary, but they aren't running his times because he makes way more power under the curve; he's not set up for a "peak" rwhp number. With unported GT-40P's in an SN95 with the usual bolt-ons, you're looking at a 13 second car. Low 13's if you're lucky, but I've seen P-headed cars dip into the high 12's with drag radials. And that's with worked GT-40P's.

Just don't fool yourself into thinking you're gonna slap on a set of P's and stomp on all the AFR/FTI combos when it comes time to race. Look at track times more than dyno numbers. But for a budget setup they are great because they're cheap and can make great power for the $$$.
 
95snoozer said:
personally I think I'm gonna save my money and do a GT40P setup after seeing some dynoes which are better than most all of the AFR/FTI setups on this forum. :)
plus I am on a budget



I'm surprised you even say this. I thought you were a "track" guy, not a dyno racer. I won't even get into this as an arguement or anything, but the dyno numbers thing just surprised me coming from you. Not to play benchracer, but just think of what your times would be with my motor in your car due simply to your increadibly light weight compared to mine. Look at BJ's rwhp numbers from his GT40P coupe and the times he ran with it in the 1/8th compared to mine and what I ran... and my increased weight. He ran damn good with them, but he was running very weel before them. I went from 13.83 at 98.5 to my current times with just the H/C and fuel uprades. I personally LOVE GT40P's and if I were to do a budget build I'd definitely get a set. I may just buy a complete 97-up 5.0 explorer longblock from the local salvage yard for my '90. I will do this if I won't have too many problems with fabing up a turbo kit due to the header requirements. I can get one for $850... that's hard to beat when you concider all you get.

Jordan- I feel the same way as you... that is why I couldn't see spending 10K (not that I even had it to spend) on a dart block based turbo buildup for my '95. I found the '90 for next to nothing and figured it'd be better to do a JY buildup on it. I originally planned to rebuild the motor and trans over winter in the '90... but I can't make up my mind which route I want to take with it so I put it on hold and decided to tweak my '95 a little more to get closer to the 11's. Whether or not it runs 11's doesn't bother me, but I want to try. :D I'm buying new wheels for it too, and I'm spending more money there than I wanted too. I don't plan on ever getting rid of my '95 so I think they are a good investment. Time will tell what happens with the '90, but I don't see it being this year.
 
Imyourzero said:
This is a perfect example of why dynos don't tell the whole story.

Not only that, but even flow numbers can't be trusted. When one of the mags. did a huge head comparison article there were some heads that out flowed the AFR’s but didn’t make as much HP.
 
great thread, I love the input from guys who run TW or AFR.. I'd go TW for the price, AFR for the performance, both are close in the end.. (plus, if you don't chose the right cam both combo's could suck).. Good luck
 
a car with a better curve than the fti setup in the same car will run faster. simple math

and yalls statement about Ps running 13s on street tires. yeah right, not in my car, or dark pony's.
 
I have put up examples here of numerous cars (94-95's included) that have gone mid to low 12's on GT40P's. Most were ported or milled, but none-the-less they are a great head, especially for the price of them.

And finding a better curve is what is good, but more so than that is getting a combo to make as much power and torque in its intended rpm range... THAT is why my combo shines and propels my heavy ass down the track as quick as it does. If you can do this on your own, more power to you. I don't have the knowledge to select a cam with the right timing events, lift, duration, etc to do it on my own, so I turned to Ed as he someone who does.
 
Man i love how my thread has turned out on here and the corral great information coming in from both sides. I am pretty sure that the choice has been made to buy the AFR 165's, and don't worry about the cam i will for sure be going with a FTI cam. Thanks guys

Brad
 
yellow1995Cobra said:
Snoozer, how many cubes is your motor anyways? i know you had changed the bottom end out.. Is it a 308 or bigger?
302
:shrug:

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