Although it'll be a couple of months until I get 'em installed, they are a work of art. I have nothing but great things to say about Brian and Brent. Let me know what you all think.TEA Stage 1.5 5.3L heads milled .010 :

lift int exh
.100 69.6 53.3
.200 138.9 107.1
.300 201.8 161.2
.400 250.4 223.9
.500 284.7 254.3
.550 295.7 262.0
.600 301.5 267.3

 

Awesome as usual! Now go throw'em on and have fun!!

 

Should be a kick *** set up.

 

Yep, TEA rocks!

 

TA TED ...

Check your intake ports. Like many other 5.3 heads, TEA will port them to the point of putting a hole in the ports where the intake rocker arm bolt goes through. Mine also has these holes through the castings. No problem, but you will need to apply a liberal amount of black silicone sealant to the bolt threads prior to installing the rocker arm (intakes only).

TEA had stated that they were going to include a note about this when shipping the heads. Might want to check it out....

Ron,

 

Here is a pic of an intake port on a set of Absolute Speed 5.3 heads that someone posted before. Same situation....
The holes in my TEA heads were a little larger. Again, no problem, but you will need to apply the sealant to those rocker bolts.

 

Are those TEA reported flow numbers or are they numbers they you flowed on an independent bench?? If not, you should get them flowed to make sure you get what you paid for.

steve

 

wow i didn't know about holes being in the frickin intakes...that's ridculous for what people are paying.

 

Wow your's flowed better than mine. Here's my numbers.

exh int
55.3 69.2
108.1 139.0
156.8 200.8
218.2 249.0
246.6 280.8
254.3 294.2
261.3 298.6

-Wes

 

From what I've heard this is pretty normal on ported LS1heads. They could remove less material so this doesn't happen, but then you would have less flow.

 

So if I put a big hole in there I'll flow around 320 cfm @ .500, right??

:p

 

I just received mine today and after looking at them they do in fact have the holes in the intake port mentioned above. I guess I will have to go and get some black silicone. Thanks for the heads up Tin Indian. I would not have noticed this if I had not read your post.

Does TEA usually ship a flow sheet with the heads? I do not think I have one for my heads but I noticed on the invoice that they did charge $50 for flow testing the intake and exhaust ports.

 

So they charge YOU to flow test YOUR heads before they send them to YOU?

 

So, you guys want to bash a shop that is putting out some of the best bang for the buck heads around? Come on

Albert

 

i never heard of them charging to flow them? It should be free since they have to do that anyway to make sure they are up to par. Maybe they do, but i really dont know..

oh well.. still great heads for the buck! Still waiting for mine. Brent was waiting on the springs to get there from COMP... arghhhhh

 

yah...yah i am bitching about the fact that there are holes where there shouldn't be in a set of $1800 heads...is there something wrong with that? i was going to purchase them before this post...but now i'm not...i'm not gettho rigging anything with silicone after paying darn near 2 grand for it.

 

Removing the rocker arm boss in the intake port is common practice on nearly every set of ported LS1, 5.3l, 6.0l, LS6,etc. casting. I don't see what the big deal is. Just purchase a tube of silicone or some sort of sealant for a few bucks and apply it to the threads on the intake rocker bolts. There is a reason why TEA and many others remove this - it picks up CFM. I'd be mad if my $1800 heads DIDN'T have this removed, not the other way around.

Jason

 

I am very happy with the heads I received from TEA. The holes in the intake ports seem like a very minor thing. I would rather have the holes and a great flowing set of heads than have a set of heads that were not ported as well.

The only reason I mentioned the flow sheet is because I always see people posting the flow numbers for their heads and thought that TEA included a flow sheet with the heads. The price of flow testing the heads is included in the sale price of the heads.

 

What's your point Albert?? Don't you think it kinda of makes sense to check on a product that you spend a couple of grand on to make sure you get what you pay for or do you like throwing money out the window??

steve

 

I think the thing you're losing site of here is that this is common with ALL ported heads if they remove any material at all.. It's not like were fixing a screw up with some silicone and a prayer. If you want to blame someone for a screw up, blame GM for making the boss for the intake bolt so damned big... the bolt goes nowhere near the bottom, and if they hadn't tapped the boss so deep into the head, we wouldn't be having this conversation.