I am thinking of letting the pros port my heads.

Gasket matching, porting the intake and exhaust ports and doing some porting in the bowl area.

They will be putting in brank new HP valves(not sure on name) current intake valve size is 1.84 and they will be putting 1.94 intake. The exhaust valve size will stay the same.

They will shave the head a little, little bit to raise the comp by like .3 or .4.

They will put in a brand new LT1 springs, new oil seals, valve guides and 1.6 rockers.

My question is:
1. What kind of improvement will I be looking at in terms of HP and Torque?
Look below at my signature to get an idea.

2. Can I use non-alligning rockers?

3. Will I run into problems with the computer?

The car is running really strong for a 305. It took me few months to find a 5 spd in a superb shape.
I love racing with Mustangs and waiting for them at the next lights.

 

Daniel,

Welcome aboard! You should find a lot of helpful suggestions and comments here. We're all happy to have another enthusiast in the ranks.

As for your heads, enlarging the valves and ports will allow more flow, and should result in more power production. Since everyone performs porting work differently, and many factory castings can have wide variances in tolerance and core shifts, the end results can vary. If you use a stock camshaft, the results might not be as positive as you might expect.

As for the rocker arm selection, that depends on the year of your engine and the head design. '86 and older heads can use non-self aligning rockers without push rod guide plates. '87 and later heads require either the guide plates with non-self aligning rockers or self aligning rockers.

Also, depending on your engine and year, the camshaft profiles can vary drastically. This will have a major impact on the succes of the porting/valve work.

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Later,
Vader
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"No matter how hard you try you can't stop us now"
Adobe Acrobat Reader 4.0

 

How much is the shop going to charge you for these mods? You might be better off getting a set of aftermarket heads that already have the upgrades and flow A LOT better.
Just my two cents.
SC

 

I did the ones on my smallblock and currently doing the bigblock heads. A guestimate would be about an hour per cylinder to do a mild pocket port and 2-2.5 hours per cylinder (intake and exhaust) to do a full port and polish. Now as a shop rate between $40 and $75 per hour, a pocket port can be $300-$600 and a full port and polish can run $600-$1200. These are only rough estimates since shop rates and time to do the work can vary from shop to shop but you can get the idea on the cost.

Porting and polishing heads is very labour intensive. If you add the cost of flowing each port also, the cost can go even higher. Really big bucks are when one intake and exhaust is hand ported to exactly what you want and the rest of the ports are CNC machined from the hand ported ones.

I go to the junk yards regularly and I still see people looking for old camel back heads and I wonder why. After building up a set myself, I'll never do it again. When you consider a set of Dart heads flow better right out of the box and all the machine work is already done, it's a better deal to buy them. After porting my camel heads I don't think they could ever outflow a set of Dart heads that have a little bit of work done to them.

Don't throw any set of valve springs in the heads. Get the springs recommended for the cam. A stock cam only needs stock springs or aftermarket stock replacements.

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Stephen's racing page

87 IROC-Z Pro ET Bracket Race Car
383 stroker (carbed) with double hump cast iron heads and pump gas
454 Big Block buildup now in progress for the 2001 racing season

Best results before the 383 blew up
Best ET on a time slip: 11.857 altitude corrected to 11.163
Best MPH on a time slip: 117.87 altitude corrected to 126.10
Altitude corrected rear wheel HP based on power to weight ratio: 476.5
Best 60 foot: 1.662

Racing at 3500 feet elevation but most race days it's over 5000 feet density altitude!
Member of the Calgary Drag Racing Association

87 IROC bracket car, 91 454SS daily driver, 95 Homebuilt Harley

 

Yes I would go with Super Chevy about getting aftermarker ones. They would be alot better. But they cost alot tho. But it IS worth the money. Let us know how it comes out! Oh and how much will they charge you to port yours? Later man!

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1992 Camaro RS 3.1L
T5 Manual 5 speed
Cold/RAM air intake
Z-28 Exhaust
8.5mm MSD Ignition wires
TB Coolant bypass

Soon to be a 3.8L turbo RS

AIM screen name - Stopsign696

Kills:

95 (****) Probe GT
94 Mustang GT
91 CRX (dont ask me why he raced me)
2nd Gen Z28 (350) haha to you V8 guys!
1992 RS 305 TBI (good race)
More to come

 

Thanks for the input guys.

The shop is going to charge me around $800(Canadian)at the most. These guys are pros and I have spend 3 hours talking to them.

They have said that I might have a problem with my idle when this is all done.

Could I get some better heads for same money?

Thanks guys.



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89Iroc, 305 TPI, WC T5, 3.08 Posi, Flowtech Headers 1 1/2, Hooker Y-Pipe 2 1/2, 3 inch over the axle, Flowmaster 80, No Cat, Aluminium Driveshaft, Ported Plenum, Air Foil, MAF Screens/Fins removed, K&N, Gutted Air Boxes, AFPR @45 psi, Ram Air, Throttle Body By-pass, Bumped Timing @12, Bosch +4, MSD 8mm wires, HP Rotor, Cap and Fuel Filter, Sensi Trac rear Shocks.

 

You can get some Vortec heads from Mopac for $370 each They also have Trickflow 23 degree heads for $1539 and Twisted for $1899. Dart Torquers are $700/pair, Sportsman II's are $825/pair. All prices Canadian. They're currently readjusting prices because of the fluctuating dollar but those are close enough to give you an idea on the cost of aftermarket heads.

 

My budget is around 1000$ and I want to get the heads that will be the best much with my cam specs.

What are you guys suggesting?

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89Iroc, 305 TPI, WC T5, 3.08 Posi, Flowtech Headers 1 1/2, Hooker Y-Pipe 2 1/2, 3 inch over the axle, Flowmaster 80, No Cat, Aluminium Driveshaft, Ported Plenum, Air Foil, MAF Screens/Fins removed, K&N, Gutted Air Boxes, AFPR @45 psi, Ram Air, Throttle Body By-pass, Bumped Timing @12, Bosch +4, MSD 8mm wires, HP Rotor, Cap and Fuel Filter, Sensi Trac rear Shocks.