Cylinder Head Pecking Order

I. Hemi Heads;
top to bottom the order is;
1. B-441
2&3 (tie) A-441, and the billet Indy Cylinder Head Hemi
4. Original Boss 429 production heads.

II. Pro Stock Wedge Heads;
Fords FRPP C-460, D-460, & E-460 heads. Also Profiler's C-460 Replacement head. TFS's B-460 Bastard Pro Stock heads, and the Blue Thunder Thor head belong in this family. The pecking order is debatable, and certainly the size of the engine that you intend to use them on comes into play here. I'd suggest that the order from top to bottom may be;
1. Blue Thunder Thor for big inch wedges 650+ CID
2. E-460 FRPP for NHRA Pro Stock
3. D-460 FRPP
4&5 (tie) C-460 Replacement head or FRPP C-460 are on the same level.
6. TFS B-460 Bastard Pro Stock heads

III. A-460 Heads;
Original TFS and Ford Motorsport heads, also the new style TFS A-460 heads, the Eliminator 900 Series A-460, and the EX 514 heads. The EX 514 is available in cast iron also. The ranking on these heads is again debatable but I'd say at the top of the list we have a 3-way tie with the;
1,2,&3 New style TFS A-460, EX514 and the Eliminator 900 series.
4. The older TFS and Ford Motorsports A-460 castings.

IV. The standard Ford Production Heads;
In this family we have several heads including both cast iron OEM production and aftermarket alum. heads. I'd suggest that the pecking order would be;
1. FRPP Kaase designed SCJ and the soon to be released Kaase designed P-51 head.
2. The Blue Thunder "B" head which is the one with the raised exhaust port and the Chevy style flange pattern.
3&4 (tied) Blue Thunder with the raised exhaust port and Ford bolt pattern, and the TFS Street Heat head, again with a raised exhaust port and Ford bolt pattern.
5,6,7,8,9&10 Big log jam here, but we have the old Ford A-429 heads, the Blue Thunder CJ head with standard exhaust port location, the old style TFS CJ head, and the three different versions of the Edelbrock RPM/CJ heads.
11,12&? We have the cast iron production DOOE-R CJ head and the DOVE heads along with others such as the Police Interceptor head and etc. I am not saying these cast iron heads are any worse than the big batch of alum. heads I listed right above. They just heavier!

Probally more importantly than the pecking order of the heads is who you choose to do the valve job, the porting and flow testing of the heads. In other words, the quality of the work. I have a seen good quality Blue Thunder "B" heads outflow poor quality EX 514 heads for example and they are in two different families. What I'm saying is, a head that is lower in the pecking order, can surpass a head that is above it due to being properly prepped.

Hope this helps,
Charlie

I wonder which heads the new AFR 460 heads will push down on the ladder. They will move things around guaranteed!

IV. 1.5 Until I see a dyno sheet or weight and E.T. slip.