looking into some old corvette heads the alum l98's. lets see if i've got this straight from the searches. they use centerbolt valve covers, the old style intake bolt pattern[ 86&older],looks like they use the guided rockers but they have studs- could you use the old style rollers if they are machined for guideplates?how about springs and valves? i have them bought for an old iron head rebuild [pre87] are they the same?1.94&1.5 spring pockets for 1.25 springs? thanks for any info guys

 

from my exp. i have read that you are better off getting aet of good aftermarket heads instead of putting cash into the l98 heads. I had a 87 vett,,,, had the engine done right, ported the stock l98 heads & was not impressesed with the results. Knowing that my limitayions were my heads (l98's), i got a set of tws heads & the PERFORMANCEWASDAY N NIGHT. If u r gonna spend 1G on heads, opt for afr by far the superior product!

 

i've read that the flowrate is about the same as my stock heads but thought i could gain some hp with the 58cc heads , mine are 76cc. i've tried for 2 years to buy new heads but something always come up more important.one of the magazines did an article on compression and averaged 20 hp per point in compression.trying to stay ahead of the local competition on a budget

 

I'm not sure what your are paying for the l98's, unless they are free, go with teh vortech's. Beter than stock and flow OK. You get the HP from an engine from the heads PERIOD! Money spent on great heads, moderate cam will produce great gains. And to achieve these gains from future mods will rarely attain the gains of good heads. I can get AFR's for 1300 shipped to your door. I think there are others on TGO that can get them for cheaper? IF worst case, go with TWS or Edlebrocks.......

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sorry, baby girl attack on thekeyboard

 

Willie, the moderator of the history/restoration board, used L98 aluminum heads to run extremely low 12's, uncorrected.

He just put some AFRs on there, and guess what, no difference at all.

You might want to ask him what he had done to his heads.

 

Aluminum L98's are good castings. They don't flow that well stock but they have a ton of potential that you can tap into with just a little port work. Now vortec heads on the other hand flow very well out of the box and when ported they can flow even better BUT there's a lot of other machine work that has to be done to those heads to take advantage of that in addition to the fact that you have to buy its own special manifold (and those are not cheap and the selection is pretty small), which defeats the financial appeal of those heads. For my the build-up on my '85 I decided to do it right the first time so i wouldn't have to deal with machine shops and the rest, and shelled a little extra for a set of AFR 195's.

 

Unless you know how to port the heads your self, it will cost almost as much as purchasing a set of aftermarket heads. And the aftermarket heads take out all of the guess work. I paid a pretty penny and the work to my heads sucked! I noticed a huge difference from the aftermarket heads. And all machine shops differ, from experience, I would rather spend my cash on the sure thing!