I have a 383 stroker in a 1984 camaro z28. I bought the car with the motor already in it and running it ran fine. Until i discovered i was having a spring bind issue and they were pulling out the pressed in rocker studs. Now my real question is now that ive torn it apart i looked at the heads and saw the were 33382 casting which are supposed to be from the 73-80 camaro and i have been reading they are pretty lousy. im just curious whether or not i should put everything back together and next thing the heads give out i am on a budget i was wondering if anyone could give me some advice im looking to get good power out of the car nothing extreme. The guy said the motor was built by mountain motor company in canada or it could have been motor mountain company something like that has anyone heard of them.

 

882's are the best of the worst smogger type heads, they came on tons of stuff from 2nd gen f-bodys to trucks and bus's
and came on sbc 350's and 400's

with a tiny bit of work they will outflow aluminum l98's and if ported properly can be a semi decent street head

there are a few variations of the 882 head some are thin castings others are not
supposedly thin cast 882 are prone to cracking, i personally have never seen this

i have a set on an el camino with a 355 that runs in the mid to high 12's
355 9-1 cr
1.6 roller rockers
torker 2 intake
holley 650 dp
cant recall cam specs

had another set on a 3rdgen with a pretty stock 350 shortblock minus an eldelbrock cam , rpm airgap , and edelbrock carb that went low 13's with 3:23 gears


that being said the best bang for the buck would be a set of vortec heads, bone stock they will make more power then any production gm head u can pull out of the junkyard

 

If you can afford any other head get them.
Not a whole lot you can do with those heads to make power and with press in studs you run any kind of cam/rpm you risk yanking a stud again and engine damage.

 

i would deffinetly suggest trying to find some vortecs, i got some 906 casting Vortecs for my 383 build that is under way right now and i got them for $300 all there missing is rocker arms they cam with springs good up tp 550 lift and im putting roller rockers on them for $200, only thing is then u need a vortec intake or have the pre 86 style drilled out for the holes i went with the vortec intake

 

I like that!!!

Next, I will sell you a steaming bucket of monkey poo; but it will be the most fragrant monkey poo there is, as monkey poo goes.

Either way it's still monkey poo. Eh??

DO NOT even briefly HALLUCINATE that you can build a motor with 882 heads and that you will be satisfied with the results.

 

Agreed, I built a 355 with a set (all i had on hand) and it put 240HP/320TQ to the wheels with a XR270HR cam, Torker 1 intake and a 1406 with longtubes/true duals and a TH400 trans.

The 327 i pulled out of my 89 had a set as well, with a mild cam, Performer RPM, longtubes and a TH350 on an open 3.42 rear it was still a dog.

 

yeah they are by no means a great head,if done right u can get around 400 hp out of them, but there are many far better choices. they wpork pretty well with turbos and superchargers though

that 355 would have been better off with a smaller cam and a dual plane intake prolly would have made closer to 280-300hp/375-400 tq

ive had decent results with them on the few engines i have put them on, then again the only reason i used them is cause what i had on hand.

i actually have set on my tt iroc atm not by choice though they came on the motor, i just yanked them off and ported them when i yanked all the carb crap off the motor before i started putting the turbos on

 

I had a regular performer on it when i first built it, the torker 1 seemed to help it pull a little harder past 4K or so. Somewhere on the interwebs is a video of it on the dyno. I'll have to look for that.

the goal was just to toss on some 906's and go fuel injected but i was an idiot and sold a nearly rust free 72K mile car because my wife kept complaining about garage space.

 

yeah if i could pick up a cheap votec base for the tpi id be changing as well, only downside is id have to throw away my brand new pistons. had to put a pretty big dome piston in my motor to get 9.2-1 cr with the 882's


if i decide to change i may just go vortecs with a single plane manifold and do a blow threw carb and keep my megasquirt for timing control, and dataloging only, or just drill the single plane for port injection and run an elbow and 90mm ford tb