Expirience with Edelbrock Heads

Thanks for your help, Dom

Edited by PacerRacer - Apr/04/2012 at 11:33am

Well, if they float out you'll just lose power, shouldn't cause any permanent damage -- unless a piston can contact a valve. 

401 "race" engine with Edelbrock heads? That money would have bought MUCH more power modding a pair of the 7/16" rocker studded AM heads. Or a pair of Indy SR heads. The Edelbrock heads are "already maxed out" according to Edelbrock tech - you can't go up in valve size & they flow about the same as stockers. About as good as an SBC head. But they sure are purty....A set of well-prepped AMC heads (ported & flowed, mill spring seats for large dia springs) can go 8,000+ rpm & 600HP + or -, depending on the details. My 8k heads lost 800RPM when a spring broke. The "Performer Plus" series is fine for a trail rig or grocery getter, tiny ports, tiny cam. Pretty much SBC specs applied to AMC bolt pattern. Disappointing, to say the least. A well prepped AMC headed engine NEEDS a Torker (ported larger helps), 850 or bigger Holley, still some UltraRam twin-Dominator intakes out there, too. I use 660 center-squirters mounted sideways on mine, big boost over extrude-honed Torker & 900 dbl pumper. Very embarrassing to the GM, Ford, & MOPAR guys. Floating the valves is NOT "no problem" unless you machine for valve spring seats to put your shims UNDER. Floating the valves regularly (easy on a good AMC) will cause the shims to spin & get ate up by the end of the valve spring. Especially BAD on an aluminum head. A floating valve WILL end up breaking the spring. Usually won't drop a valve with flattop pistons, they hit squarely & you will hopefully detect the clickey broken spring, maybe a bent pushrod or 8, loss of rpm capabilities. Oh yeah, solid lifters strongly indicated if you want to rev. If you haven't yet, go to the Indy Head Service site & see their AMC 401 crate engine, around 900HP. I know one AMC guru who claimed he saw 10k, right before his self-built race motor blew. He used home-made 2.5" primary headers. We NOW have H-beam rods available for AMCs 40+ year old design that can & does still confound cookie-cutter tin-can builders all the time....LOL   

Morning folks
I have drive the engine the last years with machined 291 AMC Heads. It works fine!
The engine is a 401 0.30 over with Wiseco Pistons and K1 Rods, Torker and so on.  It is full prepared and run very strong, no problem. The RPM we run is 7.500 1/min with the old Cam and the 291. The best time we run is 10.85 last year with the Pacer.
Now we use the Ede Heads and have done a lot of work on the Heads, so i think they will flow right. And its less weight!
Yes, maybe you are right with the Indy Heads. But out of the Box i am not sure that the Indy SR are much better than the Ede. You have to do work on both Heads for only Racing.
I use most of the parts from the exist setup so the Indy Race Heads are no goal for me.
But i can not use the Valve springs because the install hight and dimensions are different from the 291 to the Ede Heads.

Sorry for my bad english, i am from Europ and its not my Mother language

Greeting Dom