Edelbrck vs Trick Flow

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moparstud440

moparstud440

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My dad was finally able to get to test his combo with the new Trick Flow 190's today. I'm a bit disappointed in the performance, but I'm thinking there's something holding the car back, just have to figure out what. With some tuning hoping it'll pickup some.

Some specs on the car:
Car is a 1973 Duster - 3250ish race weight
Dana 60 4.56 gears
727 8" 5000 stall ATI convertor
Super stock springs
Doug 1 5/8" headers with a 18" collector into a 12" bullet muffler
750 Holley Carb
Lunati Flat Tappet .550/571 lift 256/268 dur

Engine:
360 bored .030 with scat 408 stroker kit. (5 cc flat top pistons)

Basically he just swapped the OOTB Edelbrocks for the OOTB Trick Flows with a few minor changes.

Edelbrock vs Trick Flow changes
273 rockers - Mancini 1.6 rockers - pushrods ended up being a little longer as well
Both engines used Victor 340 intakes that were OOTB, but it was a different intake on each motor.


Edelbrock - Trick Flow 190
1.497 - 60 ft - 1.505
4.454 - 330 ft- 4.452
7.012 - 1/8 et - 6.981
95.58 - 1/8 mph - 96.96
1000 ft - 9.193
1/4 et - 11.079
1/4 mph - 119.21

He ran the Edelbrock heads setup for a year. It was pretty much a high 7.0 car in the 1/8 in the summer and low 7.0 in good air. The run above was in Sept of the year. He never made a 1/4 mile pass with that setup. Only have 1 weekend thus far of testing the Trick Flows, so we will see how it preforms. He ended up getting in a gamblers race and the car went 6.98 5 times in the 1/8 so it's deadly consistent, I just thought he'd been in the 6.70s, or 6.80s atleast.
 
short answer
You are making more MPH, so they are making more HP.

It may want more stall.
It may need different jetting/Squirter.......
May even like more RPM before the shift.
I'm sure it took a while to dial in the other combo and make it consistent. It's time to do it again.
It may even like a little different timing.
 
1 5/8 headers were a killer for my trickflow headed 408.. 1 7/8 headers really woke it up.
 
Hard to say about the difference. As they say, 'it is all in the combo'.
The E heads might have had just enough port volume & flow to work well with the cam & intake & you get a very efficient combo. The TF heads may have had larger ports that flowed more than was needed for the rest of the combo, made a little more hp, but lost tq through the rpm range...& et suffered. Just using this as an example.
A good example I know of [ not a Mopar ] but illustrates the point: 4000 +lb Pontiac LeMans waggon, 455 with factory heads ported by the owner, AC, 3.55 axle. Crane HFT cam 234/242 @ 050. Full exh, T400 trans, full size c'ter with some stall. Edel RPM int, QJ carb. Has run low 11s @ 117 mph. Jim just chipped away at it until everything worked together.
 
moparstud440 said:
My dad was finally able to get to test his combo with the new Trick Flow 190's today. I'm a bit disappointed in the performance, but I'm thinking there's something holding the car back, just have to figure out what. With some tuning hoping it'll pickup some.

Some specs on the car:
Car is a 1973 Duster - 3250ish race weight
Dana 60 4.56 gears
727 8" 5000 stall ATI convertor
Super stock springs
Doug 1 5/8" headers with a 18" collector into a 12" bullet muffler
750 Holley Carb
Lunati Flat Tappet .550/571 lift 256/268 dur

Engine:
360 bored .030 with scat 408 stroker kit. (5 cc flat top pistons)

Basically he just swapped the OOTB Edelbrocks for the OOTB Trick Flows with a few minor changes.

Edelbrock vs Trick Flow changes
273 rockers - Mancini 1.6 rockers - pushrods ended up being a little longer as well
Both engines used Victor 340 intakes that were OOTB, but it was a different intake on each motor.


Edelbrock - Trick Flow 190
1.497 - 60 ft - 1.505
4.454 - 330 ft- 4.452
7.012 - 1/8 et - 6.981
95.58 - 1/8 mph - 96.96
1000 ft - 9.193
1/4 et - 11.079
1/4 mph - 119.21

He ran the Edelbrock heads setup for a year. It was pretty much a high 7.0 car in the 1/8 in the summer and low 7.0 in good air. The run above was in Sept of the year. He never made a 1/4 mile pass with that setup. Only have 1 weekend thus far of testing the Trick Flows, so we will see how it preforms. He ended up getting in a gamblers race and the car went 6.98 5 times in the 1/8 so it's deadly consistent, I just thought he'd been in the 6.70s, or 6.80s atleast.
Click to expand...
If all you did was just swap heads IMO you got good results. Had you matched up a differant cam to take advantage of the TF heads I believe you would have seen a significant performance change.
I dont get it, what were you expecting?
 
512Stroker said:
If all you did was just swap heads IMO you got good results. Had you matched up a differant cam to take advantage of the TF heads I believe you would have seen a significant performance change.
I dont get it, what were you expecting?
Click to expand...
Totally agree. I’m thinking simply swapping 2.02” valved Edelbrocks for the 2.02” TF’s will possibly show only a smaller improvement and may leave one wondering was it worth it, but one head has more potential if complimented with a cam etc. I went from 1.92” valved EQ’s and small hyd cam w/DP intake to the TF’s, big solid and SP intake. No track results yet but just running around on the street the improvement is sizable. Mid and top end pull is impressive, the gains are exactly what I expected. If I just swapped heads that’d be a different story.
 
12many said:
Totally agree. I’m thinking simply swapping 2.02” valved Edelbrocks for the 2.02” TF’s will possibly show only a smaller improvement and may leave one wondering was it worth it, but one head has more potential if complimented with a cam etc. I went from 1.92” valved EQ’s and small hyd cam w/DP intake to the TF’s, big solid and SP intake. No track results yet but just running around on the street the improvement is sizable. Mid and top end pull is impressive, the gains are exactly what I expected. If I just swapped heads that’d be a different story.
Click to expand...
Just for comparison what cam did you use when you upgraded?
 
moparstud440 said:
How big of a et gain did the 1 7/8 headers make compared to the 1 5/8?
Click to expand...
11.70 @114 6000ftda w/ 1 5/8
11.2@119.5 7000ft da w 1 7/8
Everything else basically the same aside from tuning. Not all combos will react the same. I honestly did not expect that much of a difference.
 
moparstud440 said:
My dad was finally able to get to test his combo with the new Trick Flow 190's today. I'm a bit disappointed in the performance, but I'm thinking there's something holding the car back, just have to figure out what. With some tuning hoping it'll pickup some.

Some specs on the car:
Car is a 1973 Duster - 3250ish race weight
Dana 60 4.56 gears
727 8" 5000 stall ATI convertor
Super stock springs
Doug 1 5/8" headers with a 18" collector into a 12" bullet muffler
750 Holley Carb
Lunati Flat Tappet .550/571 lift 256/268 dur

Engine:
360 bored .030 with scat 408 stroker kit. (5 cc flat top pistons)

Basically he just swapped the OOTB Edelbrocks for the OOTB Trick Flows with a few minor changes.

Edelbrock vs Trick Flow changes
273 rockers - Mancini 1.6 rockers - pushrods ended up being a little longer as well
Both engines used Victor 340 intakes that were OOTB, but it was a different intake on each motor.


Edelbrock - Trick Flow 190
1.497 - 60 ft - 1.505
4.454 - 330 ft- 4.452
7.012 - 1/8 et - 6.981
95.58 - 1/8 mph - 96.96
1000 ft - 9.193
1/4 et - 11.079
1/4 mph - 119.21

He ran the Edelbrock heads setup for a year. It was pretty much a high 7.0 car in the 1/8 in the summer and low 7.0 in good air. The run above was in Sept of the year. He never made a 1/4 mile pass with that setup. Only have 1 weekend thus far of testing the Trick Flows, so we will see how it preforms. He ended up getting in a gamblers race and the car went 6.98 5 times in the 1/8 so it's deadly consistent, I just thought he'd been in the 6.70s, or 6.80s atleast.
Click to expand...
Trickflows don't add 200 hp, they're probably only 20-40 hp better, they're just far superior in quality.
 
512Stroker said:
Just for comparison what cam did you use when you upgraded?
Click to expand...
Both on 106 LSA. Old cam: hft 232@.050”, .517” lift. (Actual lift ?) Best 1/4: 11.75@110+ New cam: sft 264@.050”, .616” lift (.550” actual lift) Best 1/4 TBD. Yes, a big step up in cam but more befitting of the heads I believe.
 
12many said:
Both on 106 LSA. Old cam: hft 232@.050”, .517” lift. (Actual lift ?) Best 1/4: 11.75@110+ New cam: sft 264@.050”, .616” lift (.550” actual lift) Best 1/4 TBD. Yes, a big step up in cam but more befitting of the heads I believe.
Click to expand...
There you go, the proper match in compnents nets results.
Nice job
 
I got 1.8 10ths gain going from a 750DP on a stock all iron 2.02 headed '71 340 but with a .590" sft cam, 1.3/4" race hdrs, 4.30 gears/4200 converter back in 1985, to a modded 850DP, no wonder you didn't pick up much, you strangled the motor.
 
I just figured that since the Trick Flows were CNC ported vs the casted Edelbrocks they would flow that much better. I realize a bigger camshaft would take more advantage of the better flowing TF, but just didn't have it in the budget. TF flow 41 cfm better at .500 lift compared to the Edelbrock, which I guess as everyone says would be 20 hp. We have a 850 carb we can try and see what that does. I guess I was more hopeful than realistic on the gain. On my car I started with 440 source heads OOTB, than had them ported (picked up basically nothing). Than I went to smaller cam (.590 to .557, smaller headers (2" to 1 3/4") and TF 240 heads and picked up 3 tenths. I guess I was just hoping dad would have similar results.

upload_2021-4-11_11-52-45.png

upload_2021-4-11_11-53-7.png
 
40 cfm at 1/2 inch should be closer to a possible 80 horsepower gain, not 20 or 30.
I would agree with you, would have expected much bigger difference.
As an example i ran basically just cleaned up eddies and a flat tappet the last several years on a 10 to 1 stock stroke 360 and went right at 119 at about 3310 race weight. This with Doug’s 1 5/8 headers with bullet mufflers. 1.52-54 60 foot typically.
Swapping this stuff over to a 416 here soon. Heads will be better, same cam and headers. Hoping for a big difference, even with the small headers
 
On my stock 906 headed 383, going from 1-3/4 x 3 headers, to 1-7/8 x 3 headers was a gain of 13hp, peak vs peak, but there were points in the curve where the difference was about 20hp.
That’s a 25ci smaller engine with heads that flowed over 50cfm less than a 408 with TF heads.

I haven’t tested too many SBM strokers, but the best ones used bigger headers.

1-5/8” headers on a 550hp+ type build seems like a mismatch to me.
My friends Pontiac Stocker runs 1-3/4>1-7/8 step x 3 headers.
Those were bought to work on a 400” combo.
A couple of years ago he built a 350 to try.
He thought maybe some 1-5/8” would be a better match for the smaller motor (that uses smaller heads, that have smaller valves, and it got a smaller cam).
The 1-5/8” headers were down about 15hp.

As for the Ede vs TF thing....... if the TF’s are no better than mildly reworked RPM heads........ that’s really fine.
Since....... unless you’re doing your own porting...... the TF’s will be less $$$ than reworked RPM’s.
 
Last edited:
So I had speedmaster heads and also switched to trick-flows. With the speedmaster best 1/8 mile was 7.07 and 1/4 was 11.35. Both those numbers were with 1 5/8 headers. When I switch to the trick-flows I also went to 1 7/8 headers. Best 1/8 is 6.84 and 1/4 was 10.96 running out of gear around 1000' last year.
 
73smallblock said:
So I had speedmaster heads and also switched to trick-flows. With the speedmaster best 1/8 mile was 7.07 and 1/4 was 11.35. Both those numbers were with 1 5/8 headers. When I switch to the trick-flows I also went to 1 7/8 headers. Best 1/8 is 6.84 and 1/4 was 10.96 running out of gear around 1000' last year.
Click to expand...
Collectors and length? Or with exhaust?
 
12many said:
Collectors and length? Or with exhaust?
Click to expand...
With the 1 5/8 they were 3" collectors with around a 12" extension. The 1 7/8 are 3 1/2 collectors and about 14". Basically I just threw whatever length fit without needing a bunch of modification.
 
So I had speedmaster heads and also switched to trick-flows.
Click to expand...

11.35 down to 10.96...... almost 4 full tenths.
What were the speeds with both heads?
Were the SM heads the non-cnc version?
If so, was any porting done?
Same cam/intake/carb with both heads?

What gears/converter/rear tires are you running?
 
I am assuming the TF vs Eddys are same cc size? Are you using same head gasket? If there was a drop in compression? That could show up a bit on the low end? Then the TF are just outflowing, thus out HP on the big end? If this is the case? They're doing what was expected.
 
Are you talking about trap speeds? The speedmaster heads were untouched. I had bought them bare, non CNC and just threw some some valves I hand lapped and some springs. The trick-flows are out of the box. Same .590 purple shaft, m1 single plane and proform 850, 4.56 Dana with 28x10.50 pro bracket radials. 8" coan converter that flashes at 4800.
 
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