Gude Race Head article in Super Street - Honda Prelude Forum

SSkater · 12-03-2002, 01:54 PM

There is an article in the December 2002 issue of Super Street magazine... great "how to install" article.... However, as usual, no performance results... Interestingly, it becomes obvious that the reasons this package is making power is b/c of the cams and the high compression... I personally don't think the p&p and valve seat grinds are doing anymore than maybe 15% of the power increases (whatever they may be)... the compression and cams are doing it... I have decided to have Crower and Crane quote on a cam set for me and go for maybe 15hp out of it... I am going to leave the compression alone since I plan to utilize the power of the darkside w/ a Ludespeed turbo kit.... I personally would rather spend my money building a stronger bottom end to manage 12 to 15 psi of boost versus having a fully massaged head....

My calculations: $1650 Gude Race Head Package + addtl for seals, gaskets, and core shipping = $300 Guessing about 35whp out of the package gives you $55.70 per whp....

compare to a Ludespeed basic Stage 1 kit @ $2000 (@5-7psi) for 70whp gives you $28.57 per whp...

It gets cheaper as you go up in whp and do addtl "boost oriented" mods...

I am a huge proponent of flow, but there simply doesn't seem to be a low cost, quality provider of head work/cams etc....

I would like to invite all of you to throw some thoughts out on who good cam providers are, what your results have been... anyone found a cheaper alternative to Gude and has prepped b20 and b21 heads for boost... etc etc etc..

Mikk

marcucci · 12-03-2002, 02:14 PM

Most power will come from compression and cams, but not doing a full p/p to match the hardware would be like putting a turbo on the car and using the stock intake and exhaust- you are simply choking off power you could otherwise have.

If you are going to go turbo, don't waste your money on any head work now. Depending on the turbo, you will want a cam and head/manifold p/p package to match. NA cams and headwork will probably hurt power over a package designed for turbo, maybe even over a stock head.

Doing the headwork w/o changing the CR won't net you a whole lot. You'd be hard pressed to find more than 15HP out of it, I think. It would certainly cost a lot.