No, you are right. This would not be the smartest $5,000 to spend if you were looking to built a truly monster 427 FE engine. There are modern head offerings that make these genuine, rare, and awesome factory made pieces look as ancient as they actually are but those aren’t half as cool. The high riser heads were a smash hit for Ford, allowing them to completely dominate NASCAR in 1964, keeping the then new hemi cars in check, however briefly. In drag racing the mighty Ford Fairlane Thunderbolts got these heads and laid waste to the competition. NASCAR guys were stuck with a single four barrel carb on their engines whereas the drag racers had dual carbs on theirs.

High riser heads are factory parts insomuch as they were made and sold by Ford but they were never installed on factory mass produced cars. These were race car heads, plain and simple and they carried a factory part number because they had to for racing in the series and classes that they were designed to be used in.

The heads were so named because they carried the tallest intake ports of any FE heads. The dimensions of the intake ports are 2.72 x 1.34″. The heads also contained larger valves measuring 2.195 and 1.73″ respectively. They were obviously there to handle the increased air volume from the larger ports. Because of the head design a unique intake manifold was needed. No factory intake fits high riser heads except for the dedicated high riser pieces developed specifically for them. The idea in stretching the port and making the intake taller was to get a better entry angle for air and fuel into the combustion chamber. It worked. These things made huge power for their day.

The heads do bolt to normal FE blocks and stuff but the other thing that makes ’em different from other FE heads is wider rocker shaft stands because of the larger valves and special rocker stand pedestals that were shorter than used on other heads. What does that mean? Well it means that these heads will get you about halfway there but your hunt will continue for valve train parts.

Finally it seems that these heads have had an interesting life. See the o-rings cut around the combustion chambers? We don’t think Ford did that back in ’64!

eBay link: High Riser FE heads for sale right now – race car stuff