^^^What he said.^^^^

Some forms of motorsports use heads that need to offer more than what the manufacturer can give you (even cnc'd) and thus why your Brodix's and Dart's (and some Edelbrock's) and on and on it seems, are preferred by cylinder head porters because the casting is able to be manipulated into what they want. In fact, in the more extreme side of this spectrum, some of these companies offer heads that are labeled 'pro port' or etc that have very, very, very little machining done to them and 'shrunk up ports' that leaves more material for the porter to be able to remove and thus more room to put in what they want to put in.

In other words:
It's easier to remove material than it is to add, therefore, whomever's head that can be made into what they are really looking for, is what the cylinder head guy will start with.

For most Hobbyists, getting something from the manufacturer that gives them what they want is why the discussions on boards like this : on: do I get AFR's / Brodix / Darts's / Edelbrock's or etc.

Hard for me to type things like this so hopefully it is somewhat understandable. LOL.

Here's a pic of a 'Pro Port.' Could you bolt this up and run ? Nah.....combustion chamber not done. Valve guide's ? Nope. valve seats. nope. Pushrod holes ? Nope.

Edelbrock 'Pro Ports' here:
http://www.edelbrock.com/automotive/...port-raw.shtml

LS Pro Port
http://www.edelbrock.com/automotive/...ges/770469.jpg

Pontiac Pro Port:
http://www.edelbrock.com/automotive/...ages/77819.jpg

Victor 24* BBC Pro-Port

http://www.edelbrock.com/automotive/...s/sb/61429.jpg

afr has a hard anodize option for salt water use,if i remember correctly it is 175 bucks per set.

i have always used dart heads but recently did a build with afr 315 cnc heads.the quality&performance we saw with the afr,s was as good as the dart,s and about a grand cheeper.pretty sure i will be using the afr,s from now on.

Remember though, any machined surface after the hard anodizing will be left unprotected.

Edit in: I'm a hard onodizing freak. I am in a super fresh water lake and I even have my intake manifold hard anodized.

Also remember, hard anodizing makes the surface coated electrically 'dead' (and thus why it's good protection against electrolysis) so grounds will be needed to be though out more.

I dont blame you lol, New is the way to go!

Hey SB. Do you have to have the annodizing done with the valve seats removed?
I didn't think the steel seats would play nice in the anno tank.

I can answer that,seats need to be removed as well as any heli coils and valve guides.

They don't have to be removed they can be masked off. This significantly increases the cost of anodizing.

there's 2 types of hard anodizing,,1 like afr does and the mil spec hard anodizing canfield heads were done in.
I have a couple of places close by us that does the mil spec hard anodizing.they told me everything need to be removed before they'd put the pieces in their tank.
when done mil spec,,surface is hard to scratch.afr's h.a. comes off w/ a lite touch of a sand paper roll.