Share your Pro Comp head knowledge

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duster360

duster360

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From what I have been reading, Pro Comp heads have a good casting but need a cleanup of the ports and some in the bowl area. I am thinking about buying a bare set of Pro Comps and would like to know what I need to do, cleanup wise, to make sure they perform the way they should. Then I will have quality parts installed. If anyone here is knowledgeable about these heads, please share what you know for those of us that have to do it ourselves so we can spend that little bit of money we can save and put it elsewhere in out projects. A step by step would be awesome. Maybe even make it a sticky in one of the forums. Thanks in advance for anyone's help.
 
Just looking for the basics that need to be done. I know some of you have trade secrets that you wanna keep and that is understandable. Just looking for basic info here. But any extra would be appreciated.
 
I think your best bet is to take them to a quality machine shop, have them look over the heads and fix anything that needs to be fixed, and load them with quality parts.

Most of these shops will also do cleanup/port work as well. Just an option
 
But the port work costs extra money. That is why I am hoping members will chime in and help out the ones of us that need to save that extra $400 to $500 dollars that this kind of work costs, just for minimals. It can go way up from there, the more work that gets done. The valve job and parts installation is a given to get done at the machine shop. Just looking for some basics. I know my local machine shops won't do any port work. Then I would be getting into shipping costs to and from wherever.
 
This is an easy one. Get a bare set of heads. ( no valves etc) Look up the prices of all the components you need to fit them out from a quality manufacturer . Take that price and add what it will cost a machine shop to replace the valve guides and service the valve seats and there is your final cost. Just a phone call will give you a price of the machining cost of the heads.
 
Parts and basic machine shop services are not the question here.
 
Sorry, so your question is, Show me how to port my SB Pro Comp heads?
 
Not necessarily porting to bring out a bunch of power. Just the basics that need to be done to these heads to make them work as they should. Things such as are there certain areas in the ports that need touched up to make them flow as they should. I have heard that the spark plug area needs to be unshrouded in these heads.
 
Procomp sell them as bare heads in both unported and full CNC Ported form the difference is like a 300 bucks a head , either way you need to replace the guides and get a good valve job and check the spring perches , all things you should at least be checking before assembling any head .

PS the term "as they should " is pretty subjective in this context , is the as cast how they should perform as a baseline ? or is the full CNC port the baseline , porting is always for power , there really isn't any other reason to mess with a bare casting beyond cleaning off the casting flash .
 
Bakerlite said:
Sorry, so your question is, Show me how to port my SB Pro Comp heads?
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That's what I am reading it as and to be honest until (if ever) these become as popular as the SB eddy performer heads, I doubt many have grinded on them, and the small percentage that have especially if shops aren't going to probably want to share where to work on them.

Sometimes its worth it paying someone who knows what they are doing and with experience to do certain jobs.
 
I got a set of these, and intend to port match em to the intake and exhaust manifolds, clean up the casting roughness and smooth out the runners a little bit.

I looked em over pretty carefully for shipping damage, then stuffed em in their boxes, and put em on the shelf. I still have to look at the bowl areas and the short side turn, and look at the location of the spark plug in the chamber.

I dont have the time to mess with this right now, so i havent.

Sorry i cant help you more.

Matt
 
moparmat2000 said:
I got a set of these, and intend to port match em to the intake and exhaust manifolds, clean up the casting roughness and smooth out the runners a little bit.

I looked em over pretty carefully for shipping damage, then stuffed em in their boxes, and put em on the shelf. I still have to look at the bowl areas and the short side turn, and look at the location of the spark plug in the chamber.

I dont have the time to mess with this right now, so i havent.

Sorry i cant help you more.

Matt
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the guides and clearance on my cnc`d r/b heads were kick-*** on mine. just changed the keeprs and retainers, all else was good.
 
My dad ported mine. Grated this is for a mild street 340, so we just cleaned up the ports and bowl area (min are non-CNC). I just sent them off to Mike at MRL to be finished with valves, springs assembly etc. If I were you I'd call Mike. He is a super nice guy, easy to talk to, asks the right questions and broke down every detail and the price for my build. To me, it was worth spending another $120 in shipping to get them to someone who knows them well and how to set them up.
 
Why bother with heads that need all that work? Aren't there better one's that can be installed and run?
 
Time for some truth here. If you have no desire to learn how to do it right, put the grinder down and do something different. After years and years of port work, bench time, dyno work and track time, you will do more damage than good.

That being said, you have to learn sometime. If you are serious about horsepower, read everything you can, pay attention to how things work in nature and learn how to adapt them to induction systems for horsepower. The most neglected system for horsepower is the intake manifold. I'm not here to give away over 30 years of learning for free but if you don't fix the intake manifold, you are wasting power.

Learn all you can BEFORE you ever pick up a grinder.
 
aracer01 said:
Why bother with heads that need all that work? Aren't there better one's that can be installed and run?
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Nope. That goes for any make (Ford, GM, Mopar, etc) that comes for any mass producer like Edelbrock, TrickFlow, Brodix, Dart, Canfield, Pro Comp (now Speed Master), AFR, etc. They all at very least need disassembled and checked and god knows what quality of hardware they use. So why not buy bare and install what you want for your application?
 
Or why not call a reputable dealer of the heads and have them build them from bare using both their expertise and dealer pricing to get the performance you want and the quality level they can stand behind , ie Mike at MRL builds with the ProComps I bet he could put together a pair for a good price that are done right the first time , Brian at IMM is very well known for doing that with the RHS/ Indy X Heads .
 
If I was going to do that I would gather up the dozens of sets of cracked Magnum heads that are floating around garages here and practice practice practice before attempting a new set of aluminum , just me tho maybe I`m over cautious .
 
aracer01 said:
What about 440 Source heads, and their re-preparations?
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All massed produced and assembled heads at very least need disassembled and checked. Preparation for any head depends on intended use i.e. drag racing, street/strip, cruiser, mud truck, towing truck, get away car, etc.
 
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