No, it WAS sponsored by Afr, and Pace. The cylinder heads were also CAREFULLY chosen, so the AFR's looked better. There is a long list of heads I can think of, that weren;t on there, along with tons of "custom" modified heads by any numerous engine or head shop, and, a lot of those heads, with minimal work, could have easily made the most power. Put a real cam in that engine, something in the mid 260 range at .050, with around .700 lift, and bump the compression 2 points to 11.5:1, and you would see the results being much different. Then, the Dart 335's would have taken off, and made considerably more power. Why? Because then, the available cross section, and flow potential of those heads would have been utilized and taken advantage of. Thats why they used that head, to in my opinion, make it look bad, or, better yet, make the AFR head with the cnc chamber, and as cast ports look better. Hey, why buy an expensive Dart fully cnc'd head, when our as cast heads make more power. Dyno's don'y lie!! In this case, the dyno just didn;t tell the complete story.
Magazines guys, are there for one purpose. To make money, and to sell parts for their advertisers, or, the people that pay them, hence, how they make their money. Keep that in mind.
Not to say the AFR's didn;t perform well, they did, so did all the others really. And, your not comparing apples to apples, so, its really a dumb test. heck, you could have run a 18 degree Big Chief head on that short block, and they would have looked terrible in comparison, in the rpm range this test was run at, and with the cam used. People would say, wow, look at that AFR's made more power than even Big Chief heads!! And it would have been likely, they wouldn;t look good at all on that short block. Thats the same with the Pro-1 heads, not utilizing like I said above, the potential horsepower that was available.
Another thing, like I said, numerous heads weren;t used, probably by design, and probably because of magazine space, and time constraints, thats why the article is just something to read, and needs to be taken with a grain of salt, not to mention, that how were the tests done? I doubt they were all that scientific, to make absolutely sure that the running temps were identical, along with a bunch of other factors. Its very possible, there is 20+hp, from just how the tests are conducted. One engine totaly heat soaked, ( The Dart head) the other cooled off ( The AFR), will dramaticaly alter the results. I know for a FACT thats why the guy who won the very first Engine Masters challange won, because they didn;t follow the "rules". Pulled his engine at a much lower temp, than the second place finisher, even though the second place guys engine actualy made more peak horsepower, and more peak lb/ft of tqurge, but, because the wining engine made slightly more ft/lbs below 3000, that added 2 points to his score, and he won. Thats another stupid magazine stunt. That whole engine masters deal. Who, with an engine of that caliber, worry's about the power it makes at 2500? NO ONE. The converter behind something like that will be much higher than that anyhow. And, anyone building an engine like that, who puts a 6500 limit on them? NO ONE. So, its sorta pointless.
Anyhow, now I am rambling, but, that was a stupid article. Let me build the short block, and choose the heads, and I gaurentee the results would be WAAAY different
Frank
Advanced Performance
www.get-ap.com