Edelbrock head alternatives?

Those are steel heads..you can't compare them to aluminum not even close...
Port a set of AL and a set of irons to flow the SAME with same CR and the iron will put out more HP. AL conducts heat better than iron and heat energy = HP in the combustion chamber, heat to the water jackets does not. AL can tolerate more CR due this one factor so upping the CR will more than make up for the heat loss HP difference.