Big Block Cylinder Heads - Big-Block Cylinder Head Test

Simulated DragStrip
Here's where we make dyno numbers relevant to the street. Testing each of these heads in the same car would have been fun, but there wasn't time, and they closed our favorite dragstrip. So we did the next best thing and loaded each of the five Rat head power curves into a simulated 3,700-pound street car with a TH400 trans, 3,000-rpm-stall speed converter, a 3.55:1 gear, and 28-inch-tall sticky tires 12 inches wide. Using the Quarter Pro dragstrip simulation program, we ensured that tire spin was eliminated so that we could evaluate each head based on its true potential.

We simulated a typical 80-degree day just above sea level, so these numbers are relatively quick. Even if a normal street car could hook up (which is questionable), these e.t.'s and speeds are probably a bit optimistic. Nevertheless, the differential between all the aluminum Rat heads is small-merely 0.08 second and 1 mph. Now factor the price again into this equation and you can see that the Edelbrock heads look really good. The Brodix, Dart, and TFS are so close that reaction time would determine the winner in that race. Also note that even those lame peanut-port heads pushed the test car into the very low 11s. This is bench racing at its finest.

By Jeff Smith

Enjoyed this Post? Subscribe to our RSS Feed, or use your favorite social media to recommend us to friends and colleagues!