Engine Quest Head work results
 

I know some of you were interested in the Engine Quest heads, so, I'll share what I have found so far.

Good castings out of the box, which I had mentioned in the other thread that got shut down. One of the main reasons I bought these heads, was their low initial cost, which would allow me to have a cylinder head specialist, spend some time on them setting them up for my engines. What guide clearances I wanted, what springs, spring setups, what valves, and so on. Having read a ton about them over on Yellowbullet, and Speedtalk, and a few other forums, the consensus seemed to be, that they are a good head out of the box, but a really nice head, if you spend some time working on them. My cylinder head guy, hadn't used these heads yet, so he was interested in seeing how they performed out of the box. Once he saw the out of the box flow numbers, he got really curious to see what some work would do for them. I pretty much told him, "do what you do, and give me the bill". His thoughts were, lets do a really nice valve job, blend things in, port the chambers, adjust the throat diameters, and go from there. Which he did. He flowed them, and while the results were still very good after all that, he felt the exhaust flow could have been improved a little, so he went into the exhaust bowls a bit, and saw some measurable gains. Anyhow, here's where we are for flow numbers. Mind you, intake ports are pretty much untouched at this point, other then the throat. I think we are going to call them good and assemble.

My prior heads were the 308 Darts, and were flowed on the same bench, same fixture, as the EQ heads, and the 345 Iron Eagles (icdedppl's heads). I havent totaled up what I have in them so far, but obviously cylinder head guys don't work for free, especially when it comes to working with iron. When I get some times, I will tally up my costs per pair when ready to bolt on. I think these would make a really nice head for those running saltwater. Heck, even freshwater took its toll on my old aluminum darts. These are the 320cc versions. Also avail in 360cc. FWIW, my darts were originally 308 heads, but had a little work, and actually measured 319cc at the port. The Darts made 804HP at 6200 on my 468's with 7psi boost. I plan to redyno with new heads.

Those are good numbers. Back cut on the intake makes a huge difference in low lift numbers. I have a new set of EQ 320's here that I'm doing a valve job and blower marine prep. Staying with the 2.25 valve and not doing any porting. I may throw them on the flow bench just to see how they compare.

They did great especially on the lower lift. I cleaned the chambers on my 308 irons real carefully and to me they look like a cnc dart chamber I looked at (I'm not saying it's as good but close). I left the intake port alone, but back cut the ferrea valves 30 degrees. I did clean up the exhaust port and I'm running ferrea tuliped super alloys untouched. I'm at .63 lift. What is your total lift?

I'm no head expert but I am happy with the looks of the heads i bought. The numbers definitely kill stock rec ports which is what I replaced. I'm looking forward to see how they run. I think they are going to be hard to beat for the money.

Same thing, .630 lift. Hopefully within the next year or two, I can build some bigger shortblocks when these wear out, and then move on to a higher lift cam.

90% of the improvement you can make on a set of heads occurs within 1" either side of the valve job. ;)

Scott, would there be any reason NOT to back cut an intake valve? Reason I ask, is my old valves did not have a back cut.

He flowed them stock with the tulip ex valve and nail head valve, I forget the difference in flow, wanna say around a 8-10 cfm gain on the exhaust from the tulip ferrea over the manley. That sound about right?

Most intake valves don't come with a back cut so that's the way they usually stay. No reason not to back cut. It's always an improvement.
I don't get too carried away with ex flow numbers. You can ruin an ex port and cost a bunch of power by trying to chase flow numbers. Tulip ex valves seem to always flow better but not always the best choice. Unfortunately most of the extreme alloy valves seem to come with a semi tulip shape. I think they're just trying to get as much material in a critical area as they can but they sure are heavy.

Heres a flow sheet I found somewhere online. Apparently fully ported.

My guy did mention the exhaust port "sounded" good, for whatever thats worth.

Joe Petelle is one sharp dude.
Sound means a lot.

i am gathering parts for a 509 build.i have a set of the eq 320s on their way to me.also just got some 525 efi cams.going to go with app 9.5 to 1 c/r.i have a nice 850 carb but also have a 1050 dominator to try.joe,if you get a chance can you enter the info on your desktop dyno and see what it sais.i am thinking 600 hp.

You gotta love Mike at High Flow! Your intake #`s is better than mine and a smaller head should have more velocity.. I don`t like this at all!!! :D
Can`t wait to see what they dyno at, should be a killer combo.



Mike, these things are not going to install themselves, stop thinking about a 509 and EQ heads:bunnydance:


http://33outlaw.zenfolio.com/img/s1/...49838269-3.jpg

starboard short block will be finished by the end of day tomorrow.

rockin and rollin!

I must say pretty good flow numbers! im impressed

That should be a nice combo! I am interested to see how that dyno's. My next boat engine refresh will be very similar to this plan except possibly efi.

I must say; I'm pretty impressed with those numbers.... Alex; told me last week, that was a decent head out of the box....
Cast iron port work, not very fun at all....

Joe, No back cut....... Laziness.... just imagine someone taking the time to dye the valve and lap it to find the edge, then grind the valve at 30 degrees...

Mild, how many hours of port work went into one head ?

Still havent got a total on that.

Also, fwiw, flowed with no pipe on exhaust.

Thanks for sharing

Hell of a nice write up. Complete, accurate and not biased. Way to go

I agree, the heads responded well to the work which they should, obviously the head porter is talented. I am also impressed by how good the base numbers start out as!!
Joe, thanks for taking the time to post up your info

Its cool to try a new product sometimes . Thanks for posting up all the good info yourself smitty

Those EQ heads are no joke, The ones they make for the Mopar Magnum series A motors are killer as well, and only 300$ a piece bare. I have not heard anything negative about them for any application from anyone.

Do they make the same casting in aluminum ?

RHS dropped the cast iron heads, Engine Quest picked them up. So...if you want aluminum then you can still get the RHS aluminums. For the price being similar to other Aluminums, you have more companies to choose from. Back to cast iron, you just have World Products, Dart, and Engine Quest. The last two being the better.

Right on. The aluminum RHS heads, are available from RHS, which is owned by comp cams now. I do not know where they are being cast. I have heard the quality is questionable.

The Engine Quest IRON heads, are still being cast in the same Foundry in New Zealand, as they were back when they were Pro Topline, and RHS.

China.

See anything wrong with this picture?

https://scontent-atl3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...a4&oe=5793FC4C

Really ? Damn. Got info on this ?

Some years ago I investigated and found they where being made at Masport Foundry in New Zealand.
Their website still shows this: http://www.masportfoundries.co.nz/head.html
And thus why I'd like to know if really now casted in China.

Mine came masport boxes.

Yes. A few years ago a friend won a raffle and the prize was a set of brand new RHS320 heads. They came direct from Comp Cams. I bought them from him, bare, and teh valve jobs were so bad on both heads I decided to contact RHS to see about getting them replaced. It took being persistent but they finally agreed. They were out of stock at the time so they had a pair sent to me direct from the machine shop which was Royal Oak Boring in Oxford MI. I still have the shipping receipt. It says under part name "BBC Pro Action China Head".
What sucked was the replacements were no better than the ones I had replaced.

fuk. :faint2:

What did you and your head guy think of the rectangle shaped exhaust ports?

Our heads are going to the machine shop to check/adjust the exhaust guide clearance a little. I must say, I was impressed with the port design of the EQ heads. I was a little thrown off by the rectangle exhaust port shape as I just expected it to be a D shape but overall they looked like a very good as/cast design to me.

That ex port comes from the old Pro Topline design, and even Dart back in the day had the same ex port.

Any advantage to that shape vs a D shape?

Here's the numbers off my bench. These have REV inconel ex and I used some (new) AFR 2.25 intake valves left over from another set of heads. The AFR valves have a wide 30* back cut. The guide work on the heads was disappointing and if I had my choice I would have replaced all the intake guides. As it was, that would have opened another whole can of worms so we decided to do the best we could with the existing guides. The heads got a fresh valve job to make sure everything was concentric and the ex got a slightly wider seat for the blower app. For an as-cast, out of the box set of heads I'm pretty impressed with the numbers. Very strong ex port (flowed with a pipe). The "good" intake port (#3) got turbulent past .700 lift which this particular head is known for and not unusual for a smaller port like this. They pretty much all do it.

http://www.performanceboats.com/gall...74_255401_.jpg

http://www.performanceboats.com/gall...dium/eq320.jpg

For Mild Thunder's comparison:

http://www.offshoreonly.com/forums/a...iflowtests.jpg

Not really. Eventually they need opening up on bigger engines. Just an area issue but they flow just fine FWIW.

Great #'s Joe!
It must be porting season, because there is a bunch of them at the shop.