Stage 1 Head Swap

[stng]

So I am trying to decide on a major mod upgrade. Everyone seems to go with cams but I am wondering what the results would be with a head swap vs a cam swap...

Say one was to go with Steen Racing Stage 1 Heads $1459.00 (Or another company with similar specs) and there flow #'s @ .50lift are 201/170 cfm vs the stock flow #'s @ .50 179/150 cfm. Thats an increase of 22/20 cfm of flow. How does that translate into horsepower? This is all assuming that the stock cams have .50 of lift... I am just curious what the gains would be of doing a head swap but going with the stock grind cams. The advantages being no rough idle, easier to tune, no problems with faulty cams, cost, ect... There are also stage 2 heads with bigger valves and significantly increased cfm flow but I am thinking that a stock intake manifold would probably be the weak link and therefore you probably wouldnt be able to take advantage of the increase without some type of a power adder. But I dont know... Has anyone any input on this? Would this be worthwhile, or are aftermarket cams necessary to take advantage of bigger heads?

My car is my daily driver so I just I would throw this out there...

 

[DropTopPony]

Ported heads and more aggressive cams go hand in hand. Your right about the stock intake being the weak link but its not that bad of a design.

 

[01Steeda]

I have seen test where the intake has flown well past the point of ported heads capability.

 

[Mike97gt]

lift at zero lash for the stock cams is .51 intake and .53 for the exhaust side.

 

[stng]

So then with the factory cams the ported heads would roughy flow 11 percent more cfm. What would the equate to in performance?

 

[DropTopPony]

So then with the factory cams the ported heads would roughy flow 11 percent more cfm. What would the equate to in performance?

Its hard to equate CFM to HP. Its more about a package, You can get a better flowing head but if your intake/exhaust is a cork then big gains are not going to be seen. Same with cams etc...you have to have all the supporting mods to benefit from the Ported heads.

In the research i've done I typically see @ a 15HP gain from ported heads with other mild boltons to support.

 

[Rickyll7]

STOCK-__pi heads,___npi heads
lift (in)__int__exh____int___exh (cfm)
.050____25___24____25____22
.100____51___49____47____40
.150____76___68____64____60
.200___102___84____83____80
.250___124___96____99____96
.300___138__107___114___108
.350___149__116___125___112
.400___153__123___136___115
.450___155__130___147___116
.500___156__133___156___117
.550___159__136___163___117
.600___160__138___166___117

 

[ADRENLN]

i was in the same boat as you when i was looking to do my swap. i wanted to do just heads so i wouldnt have to worry about emissions with cams.

let me save you some trouble. with out better cams you wont see much of anything from just ported heads considering your n/a. even when i was on the phone ordering from fox, they told me i would need cams to utilize the head porting. stag1 one headsare a waste of time. if you feel the need to do heads get stage 2.

you see what i wound up with, i bit the bullet and got the cams too and very glad i did. you can get a very mile custom grind just enough to utilize the ported heads. that is what i said to them on the phone. you cant even tell i have cams in, but the power lets you know they are there.