well after months of stairing at the jegs book and searching the web for the best deal on heads i broke down and bought a set of world sportsman 2 heads.200/72cc was my choice,and a 725 road demon to top them with a air gap intake.any way was just courious to hear the good,the bad, or the ugly about them.has anybody run these heads before?i will be bolting them on my 406 for my 4x4.the computer dyno numbers put the torque at about 511 @ 3500 rpm and 460 hp @ 5250 rpm. thats for a unported head i assume.i will only clean the bowl aera under the seats for this project.

I have a set. They are good heads.

I cut back the area where the intake valve is shrouded. You can see how the chamber wall comes up over the valve a little. I used my Dremel tool and too it back about 3/16". I have a 4.145" bore. You may not want to go that big. I would at least unshroud them 1/8" though.

The 170 cc edelbrocks out flow them.
The AFR 180 cc makes them look like childs play.
http://users.erols.com/srweiss/tablehdc.htm#tabtop

getting major flow was not the major issue for my choice. im running a fairly small cam, and will never see over about 6500-7000 with it.besides the afr's are for people with money, i already have tooooooo much money tied up in this project. but i didnt want to totaly choke it back with factory iron.

for what you pay for those you could go on ebay and easily pick up a set of iron eagle heads fully assembled. World heads are really nice products, but the iron eagle is the next step up and will flow a bit better to the tune of 15 or more horse. Why not?

K

i know that darts will out flow world, afr will outflow dart,i was already at jegs getting other things and they had the heads in stock,ive always had good dealings with them and they ship fairly quick.all i wanted to know is anybody had any prior exp. with them and did they like them.

all these head mfg.post all these great big numbers for their heads kinda like a car lot advertising car prices because they know that out somewhere out there is a sucker that still thinks bigger is better.if i was running at the track looking at numbers run after run in a limited class i could see getting all you could from a certin cc head.but i will never see or feel 15 hp in a pick up truck with 36 inch mudders in a creek bed (esp. with 500 hp already under the hood). i also know that massive flow will kill a lot on the off throtle torque that i desire for this 4x4 application.

bottom line is there is a lot of people in this old world that buy into these companys sales pitches that brand A head flows 4 cfm more than brand B head does at .700 lift first off how many people do you know running a lift that big in a small block?(be honist)second do you think that you would feel the diffrence of 4 cfm in a daily street driver?

Your 400 sounds a lot like mine. 400 bored .040 over. Summit-prepared Sportsman II's with 69cc chambers, Dart Kool Kan and Demon 750. I went with a 200cc head due to the fact the 170cc World S/R's I had before had the motor start laying down about 4400-4500 rpm. I will know for sure around late March if the upgraded heads made the difference I wanted. 200cc heads are a good head for a street/strip 400. There are a number of racers around here that run the Sportsman's from IMCA modified's to bracket racers and have never heard anything bad about them. I agree that Dart's might be a better flowing head as cast but you can't overlook the Sportsman's. If they were an inferior head, they wouldn't still bemaking them. Besides I got my Summit-prepared Sportsman's complete for $800.

i think they will work great.look at it this way, the heads that orig. come on it was only 155 cc runners and it was a strong motor with them.

I'll respond paragraph by paragraph to your statement, just a polite "IMO" if you don't mind. I bought my heads from a private machine shop online (the 200cc darts) I got them relatively quickly, the workmanship was excellent and the service was good. JEGS is a good company, I've had great luck with them and summit. But don't think just because a smaller business doesn't have a huge name behind them that they can't do great work and provide good service too! Competition is what drives down prices, and you have options! I have had experience with these people (I can tell you exactly where to go) and I can tell you they have good quality service. I got manley valves in my heads from them, and they threw in guide plates for 700bucks on the 2.05 valve iron eagle heads... will JEGS do that for you? And as far as AFR outflowing these two sets of heads, I guess that stands to reason considering you'd pay another 500 dollars a set for them, they're CNC ported, cannot really be modified and will take you 6 weeks to get. My point is you can spend the same money on IE heads and make more power.

Second, you can have as much flow as you want off idle, and you won't kill your throttle response, just so long as the intake velocity is high enough. Considering the world and the IE heads are both 200cc, the intake velocity should be just about the same. The fact that the IE heads flow a bit better is just to be attributed to the fact that they're a bit newer, more efficient design. Furthermore, they do not make max flow at .700 lift, they plateau right around .500-550 lift with solid mid-lift numbers as well. Granted, I don't know about the worlds numbers, but mid-lift is where its at, and dart's got it with the 200cc heads! Here is a link that shows a combo setup that ran the world heads, changed nothing, put on the IE heads and picked up 15 lb ft and 25 horse. If I could get that gain for free, you can bet I would do it! Lastly, I'm not sure what you're saying about 500 horse under the hood? Either of these heads in stock form would be hard pressed to pull 500 horse (not impossible, but not with a cam you'd want for a 4x4). Furthermore, assuming these heads are an upgrade from a current set, I really seriously doubt it. Perhaps I just misunderstood what you were saying, no flame intended!

To each his own, but a big vendor name doesn't mean everything! Support the small-time guys; you can be rewarded for it!

K

Hey, I couldn't have said it any better, Killer. And coming from me, it would have been self-serving.

Thanks for supporting the small guy!



tom

I agree with everything Killer just posted and I would like to add that I have a pair of Sportsman IIs that I just finished porting.

No major metal removal was done. I had a 5 angle valve job done, unshrouded the intake valves and had the bowls cut to roughly 90% of the valve size. I spent about three weeks of afternoons and weekends porting very slowly. Three years of screwing up and I finaly got it right. My heads flow better than any other off the shelf, completely assembled, head on the market for $900.

134@0.200" 110@0.200"
186@0.300" 138@0.300"
228@0.400" 159@0.400"
258@0.500" 172@0.500"
272@0.600" 179@0.600"

The exhaust ports are still a little weak and will be tested again after a few changes recommended by a local round track engine guru.

My point is that any head can flow very well with a little attention to detail. Everything has a limit. A 200cc port is a 200cc port and will stop flowing any better at some point. Port shape is port shape and you can only do so much within a given space. It has taken three years of using up carbide cutters and cartridge rolls, not to mention the money for flowbench tests, for me to learn what to do and what not to do. As you can see I still have a lot left to learn. There's no reason why other average joes like me can;'t do the same thing.

It doesn't really matter what name is on the head as long as you pay attention to the details and work on making what you have the best that it can be.

Larry

I run them on my 350 and have had no problem with them and noticed a huge difference in power over the 2.02/1.60 gm heads they replaced.

man yall are wayyyyyy out there.i wasn't trying to get into a pee pee match with yall. all i was saying was that i was at jegs, and found they had lowered the price on the sportsman heads from the last time that i was looking at them. i got a set of bare heads because i will be porting them the way i want them cut. i already have the valve springs ,i dont need the guide plates, i already have the studs from a previous set of heads. all i will have to buy is the valves which are 79.00 on ebay. i dont care if the darts flow 100 cfm better than the world heads.i bought the sportsman heads and wanted to know if anybody has had a set and did they like them, hate them or have problems with them .if you would read the post carefully you would see where i stressed this a couple of times.

and killer,simply explane to me where i was over looking the little guy.i was saying that big companys like afr advertise big numbers and charge you a fortune but fail to tell you that you can buy a cheaper set of pro top line heads port them and get the same numbers.most young hotrodders dont know any better so they grab a jegs or summit book and see these big flow numbers and think they have to drop 1600.00 for a set of heads.when i get finished with my sportsman heads i will have about 740.00 in them and they will be as preaty close to being as good as a set of afr heads of the same size.


i stand corected on the 500 hp. it 511 flb tq. and 465 hp on pump gas.that is on unported sportsman heads.and only .500 valve lift.
if you dont like these numbers, argue with the writers of the desk top dyno and virtual engine dyno writers.


thank you 85460 for the simple awnser to my question.

here are the specs. see for your self

and the rest.