can somebody help ID these heads? , are they worth going over (port, screw in studs, ect.)? the casting # is 14102193

here is what I got off of Mortec.......
14102193...87-up...305/350......1.94"/1.5" valves

 

No. Absolutely not.

They are the swirl-port ones, one the giant lump inthe intake port that's supposed to make the charge "swirl", for low-end torque and gas mileage, at the expense of flow potential. They are some of the worst possible candidates for spending money on.

Take the heads off your HO motor (it's the carbed one, I assume; otherwise it's not a "HO") and work those up. They have reasonable potential. Don't mess with those TBI heads.

 

If I'm correct, the '193s are lightweight castings with the "swirl-port" director vane cast in the runner/valve bowl. Considered average or poor heads with poor chambers, not really worth the effort.

You know - wheel chocks.

EDIT: SUNNOVABEECH! Beaten to it again. I'm out trying to find chamber volumes to bolster the argument, and someone wakes up and beats me to the punch...

 

Don't even consider reworking theses swirl port heads.
Find a set of 083's 081's or 416's.
search for Rhuarc31's recent head porting post on the TPI board
Good stuff.

Go nuts!!!!

 

You probably won't want '416s on an '89 engine, unless you have spare covers and a big drill for the push rod holes.

 

Well, he says he has a HO motor.... if so, 416s would be the right thing....

 

but if you had access to free machine work would it be worth it to machine swirl ports???if you had no $ for good heads???

 

"Worth it"? Define that.

Yes you can take a turd and polish it, but once polished, it will still be a turd. If you want to have something good when you get finished, start out with something good instead.

I suppose you could always consider it "worth it" as practice for setting up machine tools, even though you'd still have poor-flowing heads at the end of the ordeal.

Considering that you can pick up far better heads for next to nothing at junkyards and on the classifieds on this site and out of your friends' garages, and that by the time you actually work up a set of used heads of any sort into renewed condition such as you'd have to do after porting, the cost of the cores disappears below the noise floor. You'll find a greater difference between what shops will charge you for a valve grind, than you will spend on a set of cores better then those.