With all of the rumors surrounding the pro stock class lately, it is sometimes easy to forget how incredible the machines themselves are. They have been refined to a razor’s edge. Some people say that the refinement is part of the problem and while we may agree with that on the chassis side, the refinement on the engine side of things is nothing short of remarkable. The modern pro stock engine is an absolutely amazing study in efficiency. Guys do backflips if they find like 3hp on the dyno. Find five and it may be time to see if you can walk across the fishpond down the street.

Anyway those hard-fought, naturally aspirated horsepower are the result of the decades long struggles of smart engine guys who have tweaked on designs, done wacky things, and on occasion stumbled upon some engine building gold that the used to their advantage. The horsepower starts out looking like the lumps you see below. These are the raw castings of GM’s DRCE3 cylinder head and they are dreamy looking hunks of alloy to guys who know what to do with them next.

The development of racing cylinder head technology is dependent on pieces like this being available. Why? Because when engine builders get stuff like this they get to built their own ports, combustion chambers, and basically everything else. Unlike reworking some existing stuff, starting here makes your one-off heads truly one off.

In the hands of someone without CNC machining capability these things would likely never see the light of day as a finished head but if you have the time, the knowledge, and the knowhow to program a machine to take this thing and remove everything that does not look like a bad ass cylinder head, you too can be a pro stock hero.

Link: These DRCE3 Raw Castings Are The Hunks Of Aluminum Dreams Are Made Of