Brad Huff

Gentlemen. One of my 5.0 V8 Miatas appears to have a number cast in to the aluminum cylinder heads. 3037 is part of the casting. I did not build the car or the engine. I searched the internet for 5.0 Ford aluminum cylinder heads and came up with the name "Pro Comp". It appears to be Chinese, and not very well thought of. What do you think about these? I realize they probably aren't anyone's first choice but I am curious to see if any of you guys think that I'm leaving horsepower and torque on the table by keeping them. The compression appears lower that what I would have expected although it is even between the cylinders. I saw a posting on a Mustang site that claimed that by just replacing them with AFR's, for example, the person picked up 65 to 70 HP. Don't know what to think about that other than maybe it's just a bench racing war story. If this is true it seems like an easy way to pick up some pretty good HP numbers without too much difficulty. I have no problem purchasing new heads and associated hardware if it would result in higher numbers. I have had some experience with Chinese roller rockers on an engine in the past that did not have a good outcome. A snap ring broke and required a teardown to remove needle bearings. Please let me know what you think.-Brad

engineer

Hi Brad,

Pro comp heads are garbage and best left in the trash can. Valvetrain Geometry, quality, consistency, durability are all so far down the toilet with these heads its not funny.

Best bet is to throw them out and get something decent.

My advice is AFR 165 or TFS 170 11R for a mild 5.0L

Or move to the AFR 185 or TFS 190 11R for something with more punch if you going harder or want to go 331/327 stroker in the future

For heavy 347/363 strokers I would go with the AFR and TFS 205 heads..

My personal choice is TFS heads but AFR is great too.

Cheers,