PRI 2017: CFE’s Billet Hemi Heads Are Designed To Win Races

When you can claim dozens of class winners in NHRA Pro Stock along with countless elapsed time and top-speed records in the NHRA’s other classes, it’s really not necessary to scream from the rooftops about the capabilities of your products. Carl Foltz and the team at CFE Racing in Michigan are understandably tight-lipped about the details which go into their Pro Stock induction systems, but as Top Alcohol and other boosted classes are far less secretive about the winning performance combinations, they were eager to talk with EngineLabs regarding their billet Hemi cylinder heads, which have been performing well in Top Alcohol and Top Alcohol Funny Car competition in 2017.

But the heads aren’t limited to those classes–not by a long shot, as we found out from CFE’s Scott Kieffer.

“This is a stock bore-space cylinder head which is set up with the parameters to be able to compete within NHRA’s venues, which are a bit more traditional and restrictive in the sense of having platform limitations. It’s used in Top Alcohol Dragster, Top Alcohol Funny Car, Pro Mod, and even Outlaw-related classes since it fits on some of the modern blocks that are available like the Alan Johnson and Brad Anderson blocks,” says Kieffer.

With regards to valvetrain, these heads use individual rocker shaft rockers arms available from companies like Reid Machine, and head studs for traditional Hemis also work.

The raised-port design helps to maximize flow, but the CFE team did design the head to accept existing cast intake manifolds to ease the installation process for users who are upgrading from another Hemi platform.

While the head was modeled around the existing platform in some respects, there are many improvements that have been baked right in.

“With our concept of how the ports, valve job, and chamber are done, there’s a little different twist with respect to how the ports are positioned within the cylinder head. We feel there’s a performance advantage to it,” says Kieffer.

The head was developed in conjunction with legendary racing cylinder head designer Steve Sanchez of Total Flow Products. Since an application like this will see immense amounts of cylinder pressure, CFE has seen to outfit the cylinder head with the proper features to withstand that type of combustion.

“The head is O-ringed, has copper-alloy valve seats, and a new-style exhaust header flange. Flanges can be purchased from Hedman,” says Keiffer.

The head has been used with great success in 2017 by Marty Thacker in Top Alcohol Dragster and Marty Bohl, the Norwalk national event winner in Top Alcohol Funny Car. If you’re looking to compete on their level–or better–then these deserve a look.

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Jason Reiss

Jason draws on over 15 years of experience in the automotive publishing industry, and collaborates with many of the industry's movers and shakers to create compelling technical articles and high-quality race coverage.
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