I'm looking to put a set of aluminum heads on my Gen1 350. This motor will be strip only, (READ: Totally unconcerned with streetabilty). N/A carb'ed. Four Bolt. I'm not afraid of compression and will be buying new pistons, so whichever pistons I need to make it work are OK (within a reasonable price range). I'll likely be using a pretty knarly cam.

What I need to know is what dimensions I should be looking for. Including chamber volume and runner volume. I'm looking at 23-degree heads, but if someone can give a good argument for 18-degree heads, I'll certainly consider them (I'm no where near super anything class though).

Also, if you can think of some specific heads, let me know. I'm looking to spend about $1000, so that's really my constraint.

Also, if someone could give me some clarification on port shape, what they mean, and what I need, that would be really helpful.

Thanks ahead of time,
-Steel Armadillo

 

for a race application on a limited budget, if your serious on making a 350 SBC run it needs to run effectively in the 4000rpm-7300rpm power band and since your on a budget that means a solid lifter flat tappet cam
http://www.profilerperformance.com/r.../sbc-23-degree
210cc
64cc combustion chamber
angle plug

these are the best heads your likely to find anywhere near your budget limitations
ID ALSO SUGGEST THIS INTAKE
http://www.summitracing.com/parts/HLY-300-110/

12:1 compression

a cam like this
http://www.cranecams.com/product/car...detail&p=23882

and a 3.90:1-4.11:1 REAR GEAR RATIO
and a 4000rpm stall converter
full length 1 3/4" headers and a 7 qt baffled oil pan and a FORGED rotating assembly

BTW your bound to get some guy who is used to building street car engines telling you 210cc heads are too large, that would be true on a street engine but even the 210cc are a bit small on a serious race combo
just keep in mind you can,t slap just a few parts together and get it to work, you can,t use the stock compression or rear gearing or converter and you can,t do things half A$$#D and expect to get good results

do the parts selection properly and assemble everything correctly and the software dyno makes its wild guess that youll see something like this in flywheel hp

 

$1000 for a set of race worthy heads? You can forget even trying to go 18* with a price range like that... uhhhh... maybe find yourself a set of used Brodix Track 1's and port the crap out of them yourself?

What exactly is your goal with this car ET wise? how is the rest of the car setup? weight, gear, transmission, suspension, etc?

I dont think grumpyvette's combo is very good for a strip-only motor mainly because it'd probably require expensive race fuel yet make as much power as a pump gas motor could.

 

I should have been more specific in the OP. This IS a strip-only motor, but my main goal is not to go out and set track records, I don't have the money for that. This motor will be in the car for a while, and when the opportunity comes along, I'm hoping to moved to a boosted LSx.

I was really planning on 7K being the top end of my power band, especially because I'm not going to have this motor forever, and the price of super quality rotating assembly is so much higher.

I'm not looking to build a world beater out of a Gen1 block. I'm looking to spend a reasonable amount of money to have some fun, and I'm hoping to get the "best bang for my buck" so to speak.

I'm fully aware of the general prices of the parts most serious racers prefer, but that's not what I'm trying to spend. I was hoping for some help finding suitable heads. Please don't be condescending towards me because I only have so many thousands to spend; if you need to be condescending to help me, that's really not helpful.

Like I said, I'm looking for 23-degree. (Apparently you wont be the one to convince me of 18-degree.lol)

This car with this motor, I'm shooting for 11's. I'll slowly make modifications over time.
I wont know the weight until I get the body back on and get my cage in and motor, etc. But when all is said and done, the car will be as bare-naked as possible. No interior, no power steering, plexi windows, I'll be dieting, etc.
Current gear is a factory 10-bolt with a 3.08 (ewwww), and I'm planning on tearing that up pretty soon so I can get a decent rear end.
Tranny is a TH-350 with a ratchet shifter.
Suspension is still factory, but once I get my frame/steering/braking all sorted out, I will definitely be upgrading.

 

Personally, I'd build a flat-top 350 (around 10:1 SCR), find a set of decent 180-200cc aluminum heads used (Canfields are a great buy if you can find them!), single plane intake like Professional Products Hurricane of Victor Jr, 750 mechanical secondary carb, and give Cam Motion a call to spec you a custom solid flat tappet... That should easily put you into the mid 11's or better on motor. Maybe spray it and go into the 10's or even 9's. No real need for fancy parts you can do this with a no-frills cast crank, stock rod, cheap forged or hyper piston 350.

If you don't intend on keeping this motor long you should focus most of your money on the chassis/suspension. Get it light and get it hooking hard.

 

$1000 is a bit light for a good set of "out of the box" racing heads. Agreed, for strip-only, something with about a 210-220cc intake port is in the ballpark. For a street car it would be in the 180-195cc range.

A set of AFR 210s would be hard to beat out of the box. They're a handfull of hundreds above your price point but they are worth it. They're one of the few heads that consistently flow what they they advertise. Many other heads adverstise similar numbers but fail to deliver those numbers on a flowbench or on the dyno.

AFR makes a consistently good product and the 210s still use "stock-type" valvetrain gear. Go too nutso with the head choice and you're into offset rocker arms or shaft-mount rockers and all kinds of expensive stuff you don't want to deal with for this application.

Most small block performace heads use combustion chambers around 64cc. That's your starting point. Flattop pistons will get you to ~10:1 compression on a 350ci engine. If you deck the block and set it up for .040 quench distance (zero deck the pistons with a .040" head gasket) you'll even be slightly above that. Higher than that will require milling the heads down a little (reducing combustion chamber volume) and/or using pistons with a slight dome to get you up in the 11:1 or higher range to work with a lumpy bastard of a cam, drinking race gas.

I also agree with above that a solid flat tappet cam is probably the cheapest route to victory. Roller cam conversions will chew up the better part of $1000. Solid flat tappets are a bit "old-school" these days but they can still make good power without beating the snot out of the valvetrain components (or your wallet).

Remember that job one in making power is ALWAYS matching the heads, cam and compression. Get those three things matched properly and it will make good power even if some of the "external" engine components attached to it aren't optimal. But a mistmatch in that "holy trinity" and it's going to be a dog, no matter what carb/intake/ignition/exhaust you bolt onto it.

 

The more I think about it... if I were him, I wouldn't even waste $1000 on a set of heads. I'd focus on getting the car as light as possible. You could run 11.90's with under 400 flywheel HP if the car weighs 3000lbs and has a properly matched converter/gear. Even to run very low 11's or even high 10's doesn't require much over 450HP. Those type of HP levels can be achieved with pretty much any used aftermarket casting or even a decent stock one like Vortecs.

 

Racingjunk.com

 

Speaking of this, what Is the best way to decide on the specs for a cam?

Agreed. But I'm not sure on my head/cam combo, so I'm not sure what my stall will be (those things are stupid expensive). I'm thinking the car will come in at about 3000lbs with me in it (totally off the wall guess based on others' cars).
The big reason I'm getting heads is because the stock smoggers are cracked, so I figured I may as well get some halfway decent heads while I'm at it.

I live there.lol

So, two other heads I've found:

One is a RHS Pro Action 220cc/64cc. http://www.summitracing.com/parts/RHS-12059-01/
Any opinions?

The other is a Brodix 200cc/64cc. http://www.summitracing.com/parts/BRO-1021000/
Any opinions?

 

I would recommend buying these: http://www.competitionproducts.com/C...ctinfo/207PK1/

Even though they are 72cc... have them milled or buy pistons that'll get your compression to 10:1 or better. You will not find a better head for the price. The 64cc ones are hard to come by since Canfield went out of business.