The valve seals on my 5.7 are leaking just enough to cause smoke on start up. Instead of just replacing the seals, am giving consideration to upgrading to new heads. My IROC is not a racer, just a nice driver. Would sure like to know from those of you who have made your upgrade choice, what influenced your decision. Thanks.

 

I'm sitting here attempting to fing just one single well thought out string on how we shoud approach the issue of a head rebuild or when it's safe to just refresh. The chatter that's presented forth as educationally sound leaves me scared! and totally confused!! Were you able to figure out some basics? I'd love to hear what you were able to dig up. Nitro

 

Believe it or not, You are the first one to reply to my inquiry. I guess that the original question was too subjective. So, I went looking for advice elsewhere... After consulting with a few professional engine machine shops and and a trusted few on this topic the consensus was to simply replace the valve seals to mitigate the warm start smoke problem. Rebuilding the OE heads was an option but not really what I had in mind. Replacing and upgrading the heads was what I had in mind but was advised that I should consider rebuilding the short block as well as it has in excess of 130K miles (not all miles put on it by yours truely). Probably sound advice. So, for now I'm buying a little more time by replacing the valve seals.

As far as head selection for this particular engine, I've chosen to purchase the new design Vortec Bow-Tie's through GM perfomace parts. They are available as Part # 2553442 (complete) and Part # 25534351 (bare). These heads have 185cc intakes and 65cc chambers, good for street performace. These heads are drilled for the early and late model vortec intakes which made them my first choice.

My second choice was the aluminum Edlebrock E-tec head or the Performer series.

Price wise... works out about the same.

Wish you well and thanks for replying to my old post.

 

Thanks for taking the time to respond. Hope your car stays quick and steady!
Nitro