Noss Machine's Banshee "Performance Head"

Noss Machine's Banshee "Performance Head"

There are more aftermarket aluminum heads out there made for the Yamaha Banshee than you can shake a stick at, but when Noss Machine told us about their new design for the Banshee, with all its benefits over the other brands, we just had to try one out!
So how does this new aluminum head differ from other brands? Well for one, it is designed to retain the stock head studs, which means installation is much faster, and the possibility of having a problem when removing or replacing the studs is eliminated. Now, this certainly isn't a feature that only the Performance Head has, as a few others out there also are made like this, but the majority of aluminum heads made still require new longer studs to be installed. David, the owner of Noss Machine also claims that in drag race testing, the new head reduced engine temperatures by as much as 55 degrees! Amazing if it is indeed true.
Our new Performance Head arrived in just a few days, and was packaged very well. The head is a very high-quality piece machined to perfection, with the company and product name engraved on the top. It looks great, and of course since we love shiney aluminum, we just had to get the buffing wheel and compound out! In just under 10 minutes, we had an even better looking chrome-like head. The Performance Head is a two-piece design, with upper and lower halves. As with all other aluminum heads, it uses o-rings for sealing instead of gaskets. All needed o-rings come with the head, and are reusable. A very nice touch indeed. Besides the obvious benefit of better cooling, a great feature with aluminum heads is the ability to change combustion dome sizes easily. The head uses the standard aluminum domes used in most other heads. The domes are not included, but they do sell them and are very well priced compared to others. We chose 20cc domes to use with our head, about 3cc smaller than stock, which will raise compression. They have a few different sizes to choose from, so you really have to decide which size would be best for your application.
So how easy was the complete installation? Very easy. After removing all bodywork in our way, along with the gas tank, we had the stock head off in just about 10 minutes. Installing the new head took a little more time, about 20 minutes, but was still very quick and easy in our book. The hardest part (if you want to even call it hard) was keeping a couple of the o-rings in their grooves while placing the head on the cylinders. A very small touch of grease on the o-rings helped keep them in their place. Using the stock stud nuts, we tightened the head down in sequence to the desired 18-20 ft/lbs. After re-attaching everything we needed to remove for installation, we were done!
After kicking the Banshee to life and letting it warm up for a couple of minutes, we took it for a quick 10 minute ride around the track. The low end power is improved a lot! Take-offs do not require as much throttle as before, due to the increased compression, and you can feel the addition of more torque. We are very pleased with the performance gain, but does it cool better? Well after the 10 minute ride we recorded the engine temperature from our gauge and compared it to the same exact warm-up and 10 minute ride test with our stock head and noticed a 10 degree drop in engine temperature. We did not see a 55 degree reduction, but this was just a quick post-installtion test, and we plan on doing more accurate tests in the future. Stay tuned to this review for those upcoming results.
So are we happy with the Performance Head? Very. There is nothing we don't like about it. Installation couldn't be easier, the performance gains from the 20cc domes are impressive, and so far our Banshee's gauge does show a decent reduction in temperature, which is always good, especially on a motor known for its hot temperment. All of this coupled with great customer service, and a great price, makes us recommend it to anyone looking for an aluminum head without a question. They are sold on their website for $199, or you can bid on them through their Ebay auctions. If you have any questions, email or give them a call at (918)358-3804.

Long-term test results due: April 2003

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Performance:
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Scale: 1=terrible, 2=poor, 3=fair, 4=very good, 5=excellent