Scott Hesselgrave from Air Flow Research takes us through those steps concerning some of the key questions most often received regarding the right choice of heads for your application. You know you want the best in AFR quality, but are you buying the correct head from their product line?

"The most popular question is simple; they ask what cylinder head I need for my engine. Can you help me figure it out? A lot of the time, they don't know, or think they know, and want the biggest cylinder head possible on their engine," Scott explains.

One of the big misconceptions is port volume. For Scott, port volume choices are the third or fourth item that he considers. The engine's bore and valve size should be the primary thing you work with first. For example, you shouldn't be sticking a 2.125-inch intake valve in an engine with a four-inch bore.

"RPM is another thing to look at," continues Scott. "If you have an 8,000 RPM application, you don't want to use a 195cc combustion chamber. Related to that, the cross-section of your intake runner is also very important. That runner can act like a restrictor plate. The port volume can become irrelevant as the cross-section of that intake runner relates to the valve size, engine bore, and combustion chamber volume."

When customers realize the math behind picking the right cylinder head and that some customers are told that a smaller cylinder head is best for their application, Scott is asked about the customer's reaction.

"Once we crunch some numbers, and they hear my calculator working away, they are receptive. They can hear me working out the parameters they gave me as I put them into my calculator and explain the process. Especially when they remember the previous cylinder head company they asked just threw a size at them and hung up their phone," Scott states.

Air Flow Research prides itself on its customer relationships and service.

"AFR and some others produce exceptionally good heads. I want to think that today, the difference between these companies is our quality of spending extra time with customers while not only calculating their needs, but also explaining the steps we took to come to that conclusion," Scott explains.