head to head: Dove Hi-Riser

So the high riser head is the stuff that Legends are made out of , powering the likes of Thunderbolts , galaxies, and ,AFX Falcons and plenty more. Test we have looked at over the years have shown that the high riser heads stock flow in the 280-290 CFM range. A set of Dove stock port dimension aluminum high risers came through the shop the other day so we decided to test them. These heads were cast back in the '90s and came off of a running vehicle, though you can see where some issues, and have been welded probably for porosity issues. Testing a lot of modern heads  like TFS, promaxx shockers, and Edelbrock heads that have been cnc'd by various builders have gotten us a little jaded to what we expect to see from a good head. While this head did flow in the 330s at .700 lift I was expecting a little higher just from the size of the port. After looking back at some old FE forum posts I see where some were tested and came with similar flow figures on the intake. For looks and legend and bragging rights these heads are definitely the ticket and we have seen  SuperStock racers modify the ports and do lots of work and see well over 400 CFMs and we know the blue thunderheads put out some impressive flow figures. These heads were a modified version of the original layout and they were 30 years ago when they were made , its a very impressive head for the time.  For out and out performance if you wanted to dedicate some time to these I'm sure you could see much better figures but what's listed below is straight off the engine with a mild bowl blend. We didn't flow the exhaust will try to get that on a future article Bear in mind that this head is about 10 to 15% better than what the factory head was That's an incredible improvement while maintaining the same dimensions.

INTAKE 

  Lift.       CFM 

.200-       142

.300-       218

.400-       279

.500-       308

.600-       319

.700-       335

.800-       334