What is the best aluminum head, dart or afr or other and why? They are going on hp500s possibly stroked to 540s?

Here we go!!

I think they all flow about the same AFR, Dart, Brodix depending on runner and valve size, I think it boils down to preference and budget

Edit: buy them bare and have an experienced builder put them together to match the cam and other valve train components, jmo

Edit: there's a few threads about this

Best price, best quality, best performance, A little more info on how you're going to use them may help

PRO COMP

300 Magnum kicked some butt in this half way recent BBC head shoot out:
http://www.superchevy.com/how-to/pro...ut-the-o-vs-r/

Even more interesting to me, is how pretty much all the heads, kicked the GM iron heads butt by a landslide. Also interesting, was the grossly oversized 355 edelbrock, and 360cc trick flows, were still able to maintain some respectable avg and peak torque numbers. If someone on oso said they were going to put a 355 edelbrock E cnc head, or 360cc trick flow, on a 496ci marine "stroker", they would be slapped right thru the computer screen!

Looks like the 4 heads, with CNC porting, were all close to each other power wise. The AFR and edelbrock did have one advantage, with their smaller chambers, probably bumping the compression .75 higher than the dart 335 head, that only made 12HP less, and 20ftlbs less than the afr.

That E-CNC 355 head, looks like it did pretty well. Probably would be a killer head on a 572ci setup. For 1000 bucks a piece bare, fully CNC ported, that seems like a good casting to assemble.

Take a look at Brodix's newer BB-3 Xtra O 332cc CNC head:
http://www.brodix.com/heads/big-bloc...a-o-exhaust-2/
Then click on "Flow Chart."

That's got a marine 540+cid all over it !

the 50° intake valve angle may be a little problematic.wonder if they can give a 45° valve seat.

You can order it any way you want it. probably a few extra weeks.