AFR heads

Anybody got REAL WORLD results? Are the valve train parts race quality? How are they holding up? Any other issues?

Cars by Carl has had the most posts about builds that I have seen so you might want to check with him. (not to say any others aren't using them)

http://www.carsbycarl.com/

I'll ask him. The small block heads had 'questionable ' valve train parts. Some guys had no issues, others did.

Have shipped 3 sets. No dyno numbers yet but hope to have some in about 2 months.

The dyno #s are impressive, more with less. But I want to know if the valves and springs are holding up. Mind you, I'm n/a on pump gas, so nitrous burnout won't be a problem. I prefer to give up power so the hassle and cost of race gas isn't a problem I have to deal with.

awgeez wrote:The dyno #s are impressive, more with less. But I want to know if the valves and springs are holding up. Mind you, I'm n/a on pump gas, so nitrous burnout won't be a problem. I prefer to give up power so the hassle and cost of race gas isn't a problem I have to deal with.

Valves are BBB and springs are PAC.

Valves are BBB and springs are PAC.[/quote]

I assume you mean 3B valves? which is Basso SA in Argentina. Well, at least they are ISO9001 certified.
I read somewhere that Ferrea has thier valves made there too. Don't know if that's true or not.
What started all this,,,,,,,,,,, bare the afr's are 1817$ assembled is 2036$ so by my math 219$ for 16 valves, 16 springs, 16 retainers, 16 spring cups and 32 locks seems super cheap. DFperformanceLLC

my sbf heads by afr 225 are fantastic

awgeez wrote:
Valves are BBB and springs are PAC.

I assume you mean 3B valves? which is Basso SA in Argentina. Well, at least they are ISO9001 certified.
I read somewhere that Ferrea has thier valves made there too. Don't know if that's true or not.
What started all this,,,,,,,,,,, bare the afr's are 1817$ assembled is 2036$ so by my math 219$ for 16 valves, 16 springs, 16 retainers, 16 spring cups and 32 locks seems super cheap. DFperformanceLLC[/quote]

You would be correct on valve source. They make stuff for many people here in the states. On cost on parts. Its all about inventory turns. Anybody that buys from main suppliers knows the quantity is huge. We are not talking 100's we are talking thousands. By making the complete heads just a little more money makes the assemblies more attractive and it turns inventory. It does not reflect the quality of parts.

Not here to bash AFR by any means, I still use them on certain builds of mine. I dropped a valve tulip on a set of 205's. They had seen 122 passes, 1600 miles. 26 passes were on a 393W with 14-18psi boost. The rest were N/A. I do not blame AFR for bad valves, as racing is racing and I believe an out of the box set of heads vs. a set built for what I intended to do to them were two seperate places. I couldn't find a stamp / mark anywhere on the valves and if a manufacturer is not willing to put their name on there product, there is cost cutting measures at mind. When I built my new 427W I called several reputable builders. It's not a large volume of failures, but it's common enough from my research to switch to a cylinder head that came from a reputable builder. This was a good lesson for me on why you choose reputable builders over out of the box from summit racing.

rollercam1 wrote:Not here to bash AFR by any means, I still use them on certain builds of mine.  I dropped a valve tulip on a set of 205's. They had seen 122 passes, 1600 miles. 26 passes were on a 393W with 14-18psi boost. The rest were N/A. I do not blame AFR for bad valves, as racing is racing and I believe an out of the box set of heads vs. a set built for what I intended to do to them were two seperate places.  I couldn't find a stamp / mark anywhere on the valves and if a manufacturer is not willing to put their name on there product, there is cost cutting measures at mind. When I built my new 427W I called several reputable builders.  It's not a large volume of failures, but it's common enough from my research to switch to a cylinder head that came from a reputable builder. This was a good lesson for me on why you choose reputable builders over out of the box from summit racing.

I would never sell a customer a set of assembled heads for a boosted application. That is for a 1 off build. Assembled heads have a set guide clearance, set seat margin, and set valve spring and assembly process.

Rollercam1,,,,,,,,,,,,,, Exactly what I was eluding to without saying something that would annoy a die hard AFR fan. From the digging and digging I have done, 5 plus years ago the AFRs were assembled with valvetrain parts that commonly failed pre-maturely. The valves no longer come from India. The springs are Pac. All this must be true since you cant put anything that's not true on the internet. nod nod wink wink
Just so everybody knows, I am a Trick Flow nut. My old Mustang looked like the Trick Flow catalog threw up on/in it. Even had TFS fuel filter housings.
Just been wondering if I was missing something. Since my current project will be a fresh start and I always wondered about AFRs I was thinking of trying a set.

"I would never sell a customer a set of assembled heads for a boosted application.  That is for a 1 off build.  Assembled heads have a set guide clearance, set seat margin, and set valve spring and assembly process.   [/quote]

Ya, that's exactly what I mean. I feel like I have the blame, not AFR in that matter. I chalk it up to a very expensive learning lesson upon myself. That was the level of performance that should have gone to a real builder. I had enough budget to spend a lot of money that lasted a short amount of time on an engine that wasn't correctly assembled. This was also before I knew guys like you Chris and Uratchko, Bennett, TEA, ect. were out there. I felt it was a wiser decision this time around to go to a professional for my cylinder heads and camshaft combo and discuss all the engine so the combination was correct. You probably talk to a lot of folks that don't understand at what level they should be going to guys like you, and the lesson is real. The new combo has exceeded my goals by a long shot. You pay for what you get really does still ring true.