MaxBoost!
Advice for fellow TR owners from Tom Shea Racing
Home phone until 9 pm 952-892-5669
Cell phone anytime (612)-209-9090.
Email ttshea@charter.net
Aluminum Head comparison!
TA Performance and Champion Heads
I recently had some work done on my old M&A aluminum heads. Since it was rather expensive I thought it would be a good idea to compare the cost of buying new heads instead.
I called Tommy at Champion for some basic info. He was unavailable at the time but returned my call in a timely manner. He was courteous and polite as well as helpful and informative. I told him I would be writing up a brief article and asked him to compare his product to the competition.
Tommy said that he had nothing but respect for Mike Tomaszewski, at TA Performance, and that he would not comment on that product. He suggested I talk to Mike myself for unbiased information.
Tommy stated that Champion offered two sets of heads for our cars. The one that most would want is the GN1. The other, the GN1R is a race version and it would be necessary to call for specific applications.
The GN1 is advertised at $1695.00, (un-ported). Champion offers CNC porting for the GN1 for an additional $750.00. Champion also offers ported “stock #8445” cast iron heads for $1195.00.
Tommy would not quote flow numbers, since he feels that they can be misleading. He prefers to see real world performance as the true indicator.
I asked about the Cast iron stage block project. He stated that it had been put on the back burner for a while due to the economy and perceived low demand. He stated that it was likely to be available this coming spring, for those who are interested.
I called Mike Tomaszewski at TA Performance. Mike was not immediately available but also called me back in a timely manner. He was also courteous and polite as well as helpful and informative. I told him I would be writing up a brief article, and asked him to compare his product to the competition. He stated that TA and Champion had a mutual respect and he would not make negative comments about his competition. He said he would provide information on his product and the comparison could be made by the reader.
Mike said that TA also offers 2 different aluminum heads for our V-6 application. He said the $1799.95 SI series heads are their entry level, they are the ones that you can use your stock rockers and intake and work with hyd flat tapped cams. Mike noted that all their heads will accept 14 head bolts. The SI heads come with a rocker bar to bolt your stock rockers to. They do offer an SE series “more of a race version” that has the ports enlarged. The race version uses special offset pedestal mount rockers. TA offers all of the parts to make either version work. Their rocker sets are made for them by T&D to Mike’s spec’s. They offer CNC porting for $1800.00 which includes hand finishing, flow testing plus all machine and assembly work.
Mike said that the TA heads are designed from the original M&A castings. (Ted Wayman) sold him the tooling and they made some changes (improvements). The decks are much thicker. The chambers are improved along with the spark plug being been moved. This increased the burn rate. The valve cover rails have been heightened and more material has been added to several key places for strength. TA does show flow numbers for their heads on their site. I will not quote them here since there is no data for comparison.
Mike stated that TA offers an aluminum stage block that has been stressed heavily at very high power levels and has performed without failure for extended use.
Mike reminded me that TA has all of the unusual and sometimes hard to find parts that probably can’t be sourced easily anywhere else. That makes guys like me smile, since I hate spending hours searching for stuff that’s over 20 years old and not readily available, especially not one stop shopping, like TA.
Mike suggested that I take the time to download their catalog and browse through it. I did and I was reminded of the immense inventory of parts they have for our turbo V-6 cars. I was guilty of associating them with V-8 cars, at least at first thought.
I would like to Thank both Tommy at Champion and Mike at TA for their time and patience. I have dealt with both in the past and will continue to do so in the future. These are a couple of the guys that make it just a little easier to have and enjoy one of these cars.
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