There were too many dicking around on buying ls6 heads so I stood pat on my car as it is..(and more importantly....the crappy FLP headers broke at the bellhousing bracket giving my air/fuel mixture fits ...one right after the other. Pissed me off enough that I decided to stay with the car as it is right now. In the wait and see mode..) Hindsights always 20/20 but I should have bought LG's or Kooks headers that are made from stainless steel. Live and learn I guess....besides....

The new C6 Z06 is calling out to me so I'm staying with an easy ~ 400rwhp till I decide whether or not to buy a new one...

good luck with your decision yet for the few extra dollars.....go with the best.... the AFR heads..

Its all about velocity of the air flow.

JMO

 

I typically have the same problem...do you buy the best to squeeze out every last bit of power from the car or do you buy something very good and a solid performer?

All I can say is that the decision is the hardest part. If I would have a competition car I would have bought the AFR's...no doubt, but my car is a street car and all I wanted was a nice respectable street car...so I bought the PRC's. I would geuss there might be a difference between the heads, but on the street I will never know nor ever require the difference. My main concern was getting a good, solid performing head; something reliable. My Z is not fun when it is broke.

Both are great companies with great folks behind them. Really, we as customers have little to lose with the folks like AFR, PRC and TEA.

Good luck with your choice, you can't make a bad one here. Thanks to AFR, PRC and TEA for making such good products and our choices so difficult.

 

i have been running prc for a year now and i love them,car runs low 7s with stock gears and a baby cam

 

OK my 2 cents here. Its all about money. The PRC's are over $780 less than the AFR's. The AFR's have a thicker deck. All the flow charts I've seen show the heads to be equal or so slight of a difference you wont notice it at the pedal. $782 more for a not better flowing head with slightly less of a valve spring. IF your not running a 250- 300 shot or more why do you need thickest deck? AFR will not budge on their price TSP/PRC are reasonable and want your business, not that AFR doesnt but telling me you want my business is showing me. Stating that my heads are the best and that is the price doesnt work for me, they are not the only ones to do that, but Texas Speed didnt say anything like that, they just showed me the numbers and of course worked with me on the money. My TSP/PRC 2.5's arrives today, the Nitro Dave kit arrived yesterday. I could list out what other mods $780 will buy, but you get the idea. Hell thats a set of the most expensive headers you can buy for the car Kooks! Its a half of a 12 bolts,a complete new fuel system, insert your own mod here...

 

Thats why its great we have so many choices. Everyone gets the product that best suits their needs..

I have'nt followed PRC's so I can't comment on them but from all the research I did a few months back...if I were buying heads I'd go with the AFR's because I like the concept of high velocity that all of us have read indepth with Tony M's previous threads on the subject....

For that concept...for the implementation of that concept in the AFR heads I'd personally throw the extra 780 dollars at them. Its not just flow numbers and peak hp that are key at least from what we've read over the past few month thats important and why IF I were going for heads...I'd buy AFR ...Its the higher velocity of the air flow according to Tony M that seperates his heads from some of the competition.

There are a great number of very very good choices in heads and there are no wrong decisions. Just different choices.

Good luck Phil. Take your time deciding. Hell often times thats part of the fun.

I always enjoy reading your threads.

JB

 

Very good point here. But you also have to take into account that Tony is trying to sell his heads. He needs to justify the extra $800 bucks. I'm not saying that Tony is lying but its in his best interest to say that his heads flow better with better velocity. Look at flow charts to get the truth, dont just go by somebodys word who happens to be a salesman for the company of the heads that he is pushing. You also need to decide if you really want to put $2200 heads on a $1000 dollar bottom end. Its all about your budget and your ultimate use of the car. IF money is no object then get the afr 225's and have TSP finish them even further, but if money is important then you need to look closely at the numbers and performance and make a decision from there.

 

The biggest difference in the two heads are is the AFR have the thicker deck. If you are planning on putting them on a built bottom end engine and shooting 250-300+ shot to it, or a big turbo, then you thicker deck might be worth the extra $$$$$. But most of us are not ever going to do that, so PRC are just as good a head as the AFRs are. But don't, don't buy AFRs because you think you will get more power out of them over the PRC, that just won't happen.

The only thing you could do to make them even more even would be, either AFR came down on their price or TSP went up.

 

Bottom line guys it is $$$$.
If a head cost 1/3 more than another, it better perform better. PRC's are really good for the money, not only in performance but most importantly in quality.
TSP was not about to embark on another PP adventure.
$1400 for quality parts, good flow and hand finish. That is good bang for buck in my book.
With the extra $780, I was able to get a Spohn trq arm, and I'm thinking another cam.
So you guys are not really comparing apples to apples. But take PRC's 2.5 VS another 5.3L and they win hands down.

 

Guys...

There are many quality sponsors on this board that put out a good product....but the simple fact is that flow charts sometimes don't tell the complete picture. Not to mention ANY true comparisons need to take place on the same testing equipment with the same fixtures, bore diameter, etc. for the comparitive information to be actually worth anything. How close the heads would be to one another (on the same equipment) is anybody's guess. For that matter, trying to compare ANY cylinder heads by simply looking at their advertised flow numbers (if youve read enough of the threads on this board) has proven itself to be very questionable.

That being said, the AFR's DO offer a unique approach to airflow that no ported factory casting can....In finished fully ported trim they are smaller than most production heads before a grinder is even laid to them. They are extremely efficient and their port and chamber design lends itself to many positive factors concerning airspeed and power production.....especially when viewed across the entire RPM range from the crack of the throttle to redline.

This isnt "sales" or marketing....it's fact. Any engineer or qualified engine builder would back me on that. Whether your willing to pay for these features (and others) is absolutely your choice, but be very clear on the fact that they DO exist.

I take nothing away from the PRC's...nothing. Personally I have little experience with them (they are fairly new) and I haven't seen much (or any) negative comments posted on the various boards I frequent.....I think that carries some weight. The reason I posted this is to set the record straight that the AFR's DO in fact offer something the factory ported stuff simply cannot....we started with a clean sheet of paper when designing this line of heads, and there are benefits realized from that proving itself in the field every day. If any of you had the opportunity to take a ride with me when my C5 was together you would have been amazed at the power that engine produced, how broad the power curve was, how strong the low end torque felt, and how it literally drove like a stocker. Phil....one ride in my car and your decision might of been a whole lot easier.

Regards from Zion....

 

I agree with Tony and his heads are considered the best. Yes they are of their own design and I did understate and not even recognize that totally, sorry, that was BAD on my part. If I had the money I would buy the AFR's but being on a smaller budget dictated the next best choice. Sorry if I slighted your heads at all Tony, it wasnt trying to do that as much as point out the value in the PRC's.

 

BTW, my husband has the 205 AFRs heads on his car and is very happy with them. His car pulls really hard all through the rpm range even with his huge cam. When it comes time to put heads on my car, I will most likely go with the PRCs. And we love to line the cars up a have a go at it, so to speak. lol I will be sure to post results when that happens. Of course if TSP wants to donate a set for this experiment it would happen a lot sooner. lol Brian, Jason, Trevor, John anyone listening???

 

AFR's.
Peace of mind.

 

All I have to say is you get what you pay for. I just got my PRC's om Friday and I'll discuss it with TSP as soon as possible. I love the guys at TSP so until then I'll hold any negative comment. All I can say is that I've heard that a certain person from Patriot left the company and he is now making the PRC's. Hold on for the upcoming posts.

 

Yes and that person owns Racetech.
Well, I'm waiting for mine, so we will both post feedback and the bird will show its feathers.

 

I urge everyone to post their experience as soon as you put them on. I know there's a lot of people wanting to see how these PRC's come in.

 

It's just too bad AFR won't lower their price a few hundred dollars.....then the choice would be obvious.

 

Just so you know, my "PRC's" came from a box from Racetech. When I say came in a box I mean just a box! Nothing else!!! So I guess basically I just bought overpriced Patriots. I got some pics I'm gonna ppost of them as well. I have a lot more venting to do but like I said earlier, I wanna give my favorite parts store a chance first. I'm gonna call them at 3am my time just so I can.....oh **** I gotta wait until tuesday. Dunno if I can keep my venting off till then.

 

Just to clarify a bit until you get Jason from TSP to post up in here. I talked to Jason at length about these heads before I bought any of them. I have bought between 15 and 20 sets of them so far (Jason can verify the exact number) and every set has been really nice. ALL of the heads are CNC'd in TEXAS on PRC's own CNC machine, then they are sent to Alabama (NOT PATRIOT) to recieve the valve job, hand work, assembly, and flowing.. then they are shipped out. These heads have nothing to do with patriot... so I'd really love to see the pics of your problems since I have spent over $20k on these heads in the last 6 months or so and several of my customers (along with myself) are running them.

 

Should we also run the CNC porting programs at .060 "step over" so they look like a lot of the other CNC work you might have seen? (...and only take us eight hours of CNC porting versus twelve!)

Stop down at your favorite speed shop that happens to have an AFR head in hand and look it over closely.....then let me know if you don't see "quality" in every aspect of their execution. We could cut corners in numerous ways (a big one I mentioned above)....and ultimately we could sell it for less but don't think the end results would be as good, or as consistant. The castings are more money, we put in premium parts, we run all the CNC machines at extremely fine levels (more accurate reproduction and better "finish" due to less tool deflection), not to mention we have a ton of time in development and R&D, but honestly, the reasons mentioned previously are where the bulk of the extra costs lie.

Someday we might come out with a "street" version and call the current version our competition package, but don't expect the cheaper product to bring home all the bacon....it won't flow quite as much, nor be as consistant, but it would probably be a decent performing head for a little less money.

Personally, when I'm dropping that kind of coin and the "premium part" is only a few dollars more (especially considering the total cost AND time of the H/C swap), I'm going to opt for the better piece because the nature of what we do always keeps us wanting more....why leave some under the table in the first place.

The AFR's represent value at their current price all things considered....value doesn't necessarily mean low price....it means you get a lot for what you paid for. Your always going to have to pay a little more for quality no matter what product you purchase....the quality is there because more time and better parts went into the finished product.

Redneck Z, this post isn't aimed at you personally so dont take it that way....it's just a topic that keeps coming up over and over and the only people I think that truly get it are the ones that actually purchase the product. I don't know of a single customer that wasn't completely satisfied.

Happy Holiday everyone...

Tony M.

 

Hey Gomer... I'm gonna PM you. Like I said I just need to talk to someone and the guys at TSP are great so I rather keep it on the side.