Originally Posted by Jason@AFR
Hey Guys,
Tony Mamo (The head of our R&D Dept.) wanted to come on here personally but is buried right now trying to tie up some loose ends before the long Holiday weekend. He may hop on here over the next few days.
We recently ordered a set of the new Patriot heads (under an alias of course) to make sure we received a true production piece (like any of you would be likely to receive).
While not terrible for the money, trying to compare them to a fully CNC ported premium AFR piece is a bit of a stretch. The heads were not deburred very well and you can see heavy machining marks on most of the surfaces, the as cast ports were not in line with the valvejob leaving large sharp steps on the seat ring, and they are assembled with un-concentric stamped steel locks I would be leary to run personally.
IMO, these heads should be marketed as exactly what they are….a good inexpensive option to sinking a bunch of money in a stock casting and would provide a nice increase in performance right out of the box. They shouldn't be expected to flow or make as much power as a fully CNC piece from AFR with a lot more time invested in the end product. Its apples and oranges….let's compare an AFR to another premium full CNC piece and we would have a more interesting conversation. BTW, this head was an obvious "as cast" copy of our 185 head as pictures of both our products side by side would easily show. I may post a few pics early next week after the long weekend.
Here were the flow numbers off our equipment using a Brezenski radiused entry on the inlet side and the same flowtube we use on all our SBF / SBC testing on the exhaust. By the way our advertised data on our 185 exhaust is old and doesn't reflect the addition of a flowtube which adds 10-15 CFM across the board. Tony is going to flow a 185 production part early next week to provide a good comparison. In the mean time I have included info from a 165 head we spot flowed a few weeks ago….note this head only has a 1.900 intake valve.
Patriot 185 (as cast)
Lift…INT / EXH
.200" 141 / 91
.300" 194 / 131
.400" 218 / 159
.500" 233 / 169
.600" 245 / 175
(Yes the exhaust numbers are correlated with the right valve lift).
AFR 165 (100% CNC)
Lift…INT / EXH
.200" 133 / 122
.300” 190 / 162
.400” 230 / 189
.500” 248 / 198
.600” 254 / 205
Im sure this is going to be a controversial post but it is what it is….
Happy Holidays!
Jason Dow
PS….Gunnar, Tony told me to tell you to feel free to contact him about the flow testing if you are questioning anything.
( flame suit on)
