Airflow Research is a leader in after market aluminum cylinder head production. Founded in the early 1970s by Ken Sperling with the help of Brownfield. Starting out in a small 1 room shop, Ken worked from beginning stages of cylinder head porting to shipping of the product. Growing steadily throughout the 80s and 90s AFR grew in size, moving locations to Pacoima, CA. At the unfortunate death of Ken Sperling in late 94 due to leukemia, son Rick Sperling took hold of the reins. Under new leadership, by the late 90s AFR owned 2 buildings and employed about 20 workers. In the new millennium, AFR grew rapidly expanding their Pacoima location to two more buildings with over 5 new machines. The size increase did not stop there. AFR moved locations once more to a state of the art industrial building in Valencia, CA to help streamline production and create an incomparable product. AFR continues to lead the way in cylinder head and automotive manufacturing.




Early Years - Innovation (1970-1980)

Airflow Research early years were defined by their high-powered porting of cylinder heads, innovative porting techniques such as fast burning chambers, D-shaped big block Chevy exhaust ports, hurricane chambers, and their CNC ported cylinder heads. In 1979, AFR pioneered CNC porting with their then revolutionary tape fed CNC machine. Airflow Research quickly established itself as a premiere supplier to the fastest race teams in the country. Names like Bill Jenkins’ Grumpies Toy, Bob Glidden’s Fords and Chryslers, Warren Johnson, and Frank Iaconio were getting their power from AFR aluminum cylinder heads.



AFR’s Technological Revolution (1980-1990)

Airflow Research cylinder heads became a key consultant to General Motors, designing cast iron and aluminum heads for the still-popular phase 3, 4, 5, and 6 Bowtie Small Block Chevy. AFR designed the big block D port aluminum pro-stock racing head, at that time the state-of-the-art. AFR had also branched out into NASCAR, porting cylinder heads for top drivers like Darrel Waltrip, Cale Yarbrough, Richard Childress, Junior Johnson, Richard Petty, AJ Foyt, Harry Gant, and Neil Bonnet, to name a few. Airflow Research’s pioneering use of wet-flow technology was allowing AFR cylinder heads to obtain unequaled flow and power.



Total Manufacturing (1990-Present)

Airflow Research advanced to full production of cylinder heads in the early 90’s by incorporating advanced high density Cast Billet technology into their southern California facility. Now able to maintain full control of design and porting technology, AFR combined their 30 years of high performance racing experience into making aluminum cylinder heads available to a much broader customer base. For the first time, racers were able to obtain full 5-axis CNC ported racing aluminum cylinder heads at an affordable price. In the mid-90’s, Airflow Research was the first to offer cylinder heads for the popular Gen-2 Small Block Chevy LT-1 and LT-4 engine programs. The first to receive a CARB EO number for emission legal aluminum street heads. AFR also introduced the patented “Hydra Rev” to eliminate Hydraulic Roller valve float. In 2004 AFR was the first to introduce the popular Gen 3 LS1 aftermarket cylinder head.



Research & Development

Cylinder head technology starts with research. That includes hundreds of hours designing and hand porting intake and exhaust ports to experiment and compare flow and horsepower characteristics. Airflow Research has tested thousands of cylinder heads over the years, for every application from top fuel dragsters to Saturday night street rods. Understanding the application and performance requirements is where AFR starts its design criteria. To accurately evaluate port designs, AFR spends thousands of hours on engine dynos and flow rates are all compared to determine the optimal port design for specific applications. During the manufacturing process, cylinder head castings are mounted in the machining centers and then searched for and located using optical work coordinate probing systems. This insures the most accurate location possible to begin the machining process. This eliminates the “stacked tolerance/human error” from the equation when loading and unloading cylinder heads at each work station.

Airflow Research: Aluminum cylinder head manufacturing and flow dynamics