While Side-loading has been addressed to a certain degree I wonder how longevity in the lifter bores would be with a high lift/duration camshaft with that pushrod angle. It is hard to tell from their picture so maybe the angle isn't really aggressive enough to be an issue.
Once again I have to ask: Is anyone actually USING them? I'm not really swayed much by magazine articles or mfg claims. I want to hear from Ed in Ogden, Utah who bought a set 3 months ago for he and his brother to race weekends with. Or an independent engine builder . . .
I know the last thing you guys want to hear about is GM heads in comparison to this. I think you guys are really looking a gift horse in the mouth here though. A quick comparison of these heads to say a ported LS6 GM casting shows some very similar characteristics. That's pretty good since a 347 LS1 with those heads is making in the 500rwhp NA range now.
The 247cc port volume looks big, but is it actually? The cross sectional area of the ports @ 2.74 sq in is not that big at all, I've seen some LS6 ported castings in that cross sectional area (237cc port volume) and flow about the same or less than the Kaase heads. As far as other Ford Windsor castings you probably have a awesome head in front of you here. Extrapolating on that cross sectional area of the 185AFR (2.55 sq in) and then looking what the corresponding 2.74 sq in cross section would be gets you to 195-205cc AFR's Now take those flow numbers from the Kaase heads and compare them to 205cc AFR's BIG difference there.
As for price, I know you guys are used to cheap AFR's for bad ass heads, but in comarison to what else is out there on other engine makes and you have a dam good deal going. $620 per bare head is pretty impressive when a bare LS6 casting is about that. The bad thing is that the LS6 guys have to pay some bucks for some good porting to get them to flow what the Kaase heads flow out of the box. I just want to know what a quality head porter can do with a set of heads like this. It's going to put most ported Yates castings to shame but maybe not as good as a well ported Brodix Ford or Edelbrock Victor casting.
As for me, I would run them on anything from a 347 stroker to a 408 Windsor.
Well for what it's worth on the pro dyno sims program. On a 408" street engine 10:1cr single plane intake 950 cfm carb. the afr 205's made 9hp and 1tq more than the kasse heads. On a race 12:1cr 1100cfm engine big solid roller the kasse heads made 2hp and 13 tq more than afr 205's
I'm popping D Durden's question to the top: anybody running this Jeg's/Kaase SBF heads? I just heard of them for the first time a couple days ago. Going by the Stangnet threads, they were released in October 2003, and there was a lot of noise about them on the web through early 2004. Then NOTHING!
What's the deal? I've been thinking about a 408 Clevor using Cylinder Head Innovations heads, and I come across these Kaase heads that spec out about the same as the CHI heads. But it seems like the Kaase heads have dropped off the map. Surely somebody's seen them in real life by now.
Honestly, after talking to as many people as I could who've actually DONE a 409ish Windsor, the SECOND set of heads many people are running are a "standard"ish aftermarket head that are worked and flowbenched.
It seems that people are actually better off buying decent heads and having them worked by a pro and flowbench checked step by step as opposed to spending all your money on the latest heads shown off in Hot Rod with little or no work.
I mean, hey, if you've got a money tree, I guess it doesn't matter, but I don't!
BTW, I've got 160k+ on my stroker Windsor. Great choice of powerplants if you asked me. Go for it.
Hey, D, thanks for the reply. 160,000 miles on a 408 Windsor has got to be the world's record.
Unfortunately, this thread has once again floated downstream without a single report of a Jeg's/Kaase SBF head sighting in the wild. Are they some kind of hoax? Big buzz in early '04, magazine writeups, then nothing. Weird.
Seems like they'd drop the prices if they aren't selling any. According to the "home page," http://www.jegs.com/webapp/wcs/stor...atalogId=10002&storeId=10001&categoryId=22799 , it's $1600 for a pair of the "hydraulic roller" heads (60 cc, 331/210 cfm at 0.800" (?!) lift, 2.10/1.60 SS valves), plus $260 for a pair of mandatory valve covers, brings the total to $1860. Evidently you also need custom length pushrods, which adds another $130 to the package, if you're swapping over to a roller engine. This brings the total package to a couple lattes short of $2000.
What I'm seeing is that if it costs much over a grand, people will just spend the extra money and supercharge. Why not? You'll get more power, anyway.
You can buy a set of Dart heads and spend over a grand in work, and they'll probably outperform the Kaase heads or at least be equal to them. And you won't need all the other crap that goes with them.
Windsor has 160k and running like a top. Needs a valve lash job and a tune up, but that's normal (solid cam). Great motor.