Since i'm young, and not the most experienced yet, i need some help deciding what heads to use on my new 350. Its a 78 truck motor with 4 bolt mains, and a wieland aluminum intake manifold.
I have four choices of heads to use on this engine.
1.)Stock heads from the 350
2.)84 lg4 heads
3.)83 crossfire 305 heads
4.)86 LG4 heads

I want to accomplish these four tasks.
1.)Not choke my engine of potential power. Make the most possible
2.)Not get myself over my head with porting.
3.)Make it reliable for at least a few years of un-white smoke.
4.)Not spend a fortune.
In case your wondering, i already own these heads so thats why i picked them. Thanks alot.
aaron

 

Go find you some L98 alum. vette heads and if they're in good shape do nothing to them. Got mine for $375 I don't think I could have put that much $$$ into my lg4 heads and got better results....

 

Thanks for your opinion, but i won't do that for two reasons. First, i already have four sets, and i don't have 375 to stick into a used set of heads. And second, i'm going to have one of these sets machined, and then i'll rebuild them. This engine has to run perfect and not smoke for a long time. $375+ machining+ rebuilding= I don't have that kinda money.
aaron

 

Port and polish one of the sets of LG4 heads. If the 350 heads you have are from a truck then they're probably garbage.

 

adding on the last guy.

Yeah but, they will have larger combustion chambers which may work out better depending on the pistons in the new engine.

the LG4 (this is a 305 right) has reall small chambers which will be ok if you have dished pistons but will make way too much compression if they are flat-tops.

Can you get the last 3 #s off of the truck 350 heads(casting #) and post the valve sizes as well. If they have small valves you could get 1.94/1.5 or 1.6 or even 2.02 intakes posibly and still have a descent set of heads.
Chevy used the same castings utilizing diferent valve sizes for the various applications. One pair that I have is the middle of the road for a casting that made from 160-375hp w/ diferent valves on different engines.(make any sense?)

Just find out more abotu the 350 heads you have.

I really dont know how much more machining in larger valves cost. I do need to find out though. anyone????

Or you could keep looking around for heads. I found a guy selling them by the pair for $20
I bought one pair, could/should have bought more but tired of moving all this crap around as it is.