that's right. My engine with less than 18K has a wobbling crank (balancer and pulley replaced already) and today I found a new gem of information. The pass side head is a 193 and the driverside is a 083. Beyond performance, how else am I screwed?

I doubt it actually would make a big difference... the 'specs' of each are basically the same. On a stockish engine, it probably wouldn't make a difference. I've seen lots of stuff with mismatched castings (mostly '70s stuff with various combinations of 882/993/624 castings) and they ran fine.

Cool, thanks for the reply. I feel a little better.

Be aware that 193 heads are TBI truck "swirl port" heads, meaning they have swirl ramps in the intake ports that do wonders for low RPM torque and help mileage. However for even a mild performance application, for lack of a better word, they suck. That swirl ramp is quite a restriction.


083 heads are 87-92 camaro L98 heads. They don't have the swirl ramp and therefore flow better at higher RPM, but don't support the same off-idle grunt as the 193 heads.

Since third gen engine management systems only have one O2 sensor on the driver side, they rely heavily on the fact that both banks of cylinders are mechanically identical. I've never done any practical experimentation with this situation, but going on my gut, I highly doubt your engine is running optimally.

Yeah I am familiar with the castings. I went throug hthis with a replacement motor that I bought from a local parts store. At least both heads matched at 193 even though they were wrong.
I bought this car with this engine in it already. And yes it does not run optimally. I am not worried about that. I just need it to last. My main concern is the motor barfing parts. I have akid coming and can't afford another car or engine and I don't want to learn to rebuild one on my daily.
I really don't know why I like these cars anymore.

If it's just a driver I wouldn't worry about it. I'd try to avoid WOT though.

No clue how this would affect emissions if thats even a concern.

One side of hte engine is going ot have different volumetric efficiencies than the otherside. I can imagine that it would cause some pretty funky issues in normal running. I'd switch hte heads to match the 083. They're cheap and easy to find.