Real Life Ported E-head VS TrickFlow 270 Comparison

I see everyone looking for the performance of the TF270 heads. I figured I would post real life side by side comparisons for everyone to see. First, I will list the car and engine combo.

The car, 225" slip joint dragster, 4.10 gear, PG w/1.80 first gear, Coan 5800 converter, 2 1/8" tube headers and total weight is 1770.

The short block is one I built 19 years ago for my 1970 Cuda. This engine has about 2000 street miles on it and I have no clue how many 1/4 and 1/8 mile passes it has...a lot though! I love it because I put gas in it, cool it off an hit the start button and go again, virtually zero maintenance between rounds or races!

The engine: (With E-Heads)
451CI - .055 over stock stroke
10.7-1 CR (0 Deck)
Cam - Comp Cams 258 and 262 @ .050 631/631 lift, spec'd by Dewayne Porter for me in 2005.
Heads E-heads ported by Dewayne Porter, 303 flow @ .600
Intake was a box stock Holley Street Domination
Carb was a 4150 1000cfm Holley

The Engine now: (TF270)
451CI - .055 over stock stroke
11.0-1 CR (0 Deck), this is because the CC is smaller
Cam - Comp Cams 258 and 262 @ .050 631/631 lift, same cam Dwayne Porter cam, no changes.
Heads out of the box TF270's
Intake Indy MW tall manifold (box stock)
Carb - Gen 3 1050 Holley Domination

So far I only have four runs on this new combo, still fine tuning it. Below are side by side comparisons with almost identical weather.

No clue how to load a chart, this took forever to get right (formatted in a legible format!)

I believe with a little more tuning and the right air, low 7.9's or high 7.8's are very possible with this current combo.

Dewayne, if you read this, that little street cam you spec'd for me years ago has been amazing!! However, I think a new one might be in order now for the new combo as this one just doesn't have the higher RPM range this set up needs now. With the e-heads, I was trapping at 6800, now I am trapping at 7300 and I have to much converter slippage too, not because of the cam...just because I do, for now .

That’s awesome info, thanks for sharing. 100-ish hp just from a head, intake and carb swap is super promising for the 270’s!

What pistons and rods are in the shortblock? 7300 is nothing to sneeze at.

Wow, that's a NICE gain!

Impressive gains for sure!!

Looks like between the heads, intake, and carb you’re up about 100hp.

When you say the “tall” Indy MW manifold...... do you mean the 440-3 or the 440-3X?

An interesting test prior to the head swap would have been the 1050 carb on a std port Ede SV intake.

Those are really nice results. I did a lot of dyno testing of the TF240 and TF270 heads when they first came out and I was very impressed with them. You do have to be careful with the cam selection though since the heads flow so well it is easy to over cam the heads. The best came I found for my pump gas 470 was a 264/268 that Dwayne selected. You could talk to him about using that same cam, or perhaps another set of lobes from the same family.

https://www.motortrend.com/how-to/dyno-day-trick-flow-270-mopar-heads/

Another thing I'll point out is that the Indy manifold was really rough out of the box. We tried it on the dyno and it didn't work very well so we went back to a Wilson ported standard port intake. I had my Indy manifold reworked by Wilson and then the motor started to make some serious steam. The out of the box Indy intake killed a bunch of power on my engine so that is something to keep an eye on.

Is the 1770 without driver?

So, just to throw some water on this, does anyone know how the TF270's compare against either the Indy -1 or 325 heads? I can tell you from a flow bench perspective, these top out around 380cfm, and the B1 heads go +420cfm....

Blusmbl, I have Ross pistons and Manley H-Beam rods.

Dwayne, I had to look this up. There are two manifolds, as you are aware. I have the 7.25" high, which is the 3X.

Andy,
I read the articles you did when I was deciding which heads to buy. I wasn't looking to set the world on fire, was just hoping to break into the 7's with what I would call a street engine. Hell, I ran this engine on the street for 15 years, so I guess it really is one . I seen you were sending the manifold to Wilson, but I never seen the results after you got it back from them. They are only 100 miles from me, so I have considered taking it to them. Which porting service did you get?

I have also eyeballed that cam Dwayne did for you as well. Because I have low compression, I was thinking that cam would be about perfect.

Dwayne, what can you tell me about the cam and how it would work in the dragster.

Rick

Matt, that weight was this past weekend with me and the car.

Chip, I was hoping for 8.2's so I was extremely surprised too!

Wow, the 3X is a BIG intake manifold. I'm surprised it is working that well for you. If you have the money and time I'd recommend testing an Edelbrock Super Victor with Max Wedge ports. The Edelbrock SV should be a better intake for your engine than the 3X. But of course, what you have seems to be working pretty well so no need to change if you don't want to.

Very nice gain! More squeeze, and more cam, e85, hmmmmm!

Andy, you are correct, it is a big manifold and wasn't what I wanted, based on your article. I had the Edelbrock on order with Summit for over six months and got tired of waiting. This was the only thing I could find at the time. I may still try the Edelbrock in time though.

Thanks for all your tech articles too, they have helped me quite a bit over the years.

Thanks! Again, your combo is working super well together, and has really highlighted how great those heads are out of the box.

TF advertises 350-ish, IIRC

Comparing it to a B1 is a bit apples to oranges, given the B1 requires special pistons, etc., whereas the TF is basically a bolt on.

The gains showing up right from the 60-ft is pretty impressive, too.

very nice pickup, gotta love it when you make changes it exceeds your expectations.

Yeah, that has been a problem this year. For some reason Edelbrock stopped making manifolds. I think some of those supply issues will get sorted out over the next 12 months so you might be able to test a SV against what you have and then decide which one to keep. I'm pretty sure the SV intake will end up working better for you than the 3X but who knows, maybe your engine really likes the 3X for some reason.

Very interesting comparison

The only thing I would note is the Stock Street Dominator intake undoubtedly would be holding back some of the potential power of the old combo (see Brad Haak's Thread regarding SD mods) whereas the Big Indy intake would likey easily keep up with the new combo's headflow potential....with no real torque penalty in such a light car (1800 pound Dragster)

I tell you it's really cool to see "real world" back to back tests like this!!

Thanks for sharing those are nice gains.
You should be very happy with that.

On a sidenote I hope all you guys that do pick Dwayne’s brain actually buy a cam from him every once in a while.

Nice! Thanks for sharing the data!

Is That Cam a Solid Flat Tappet or a Solid Roller?

Sorry I am late getting back. It is a roller cam.

And some valve springs... and lifters... and the other hardware to assemble your heads... which he can freshen up for you... if he didn't already do the original prep and / or porting...

Yeah, I'm a happy PRH customer

He did the work on my cam so he got the sale.

Those results are impressive
Now, how much effort, time and money are you willing to put in it to make more gains like that

I have a Super Victor standard port, it has 5 passes on it. If you're interested. Bought it new about a year ago.

Great gains! If I were building a race engine right now id definitely be looking at the 270 heads .