I am thinking of buying some lt1 heads from a guy for fairly cheap right now. I just want to know if those are a good upgrade to go with. They are stock I believe and are off a 4th gen z28. I have aftermarket pistons and a cam ready to go and need some heads. If you could give me some specs on the heads that would be great too. I have a stock 92 z28 l98. I am just going for a very mild build up to about 350-375ish horsepower.

 

Jay-that's not enough info.Aftermarket pistons and cam??.It's more a question of what would work on one thing would be god awful one something else.Point is you can't/shouldn't just pick one part of a big picture build and expect a intelligent answer.

 

it takes alot of work to get the LT1 heads to work on an old style sbc. FWIW, port the L98 heads.

 

Get some vortec heads

 

 

I think I'm going mild enough to not warrant the 800 dollar vortecs. I'm putting in a crane .266 solid roller camshaft and some flattop pistons which I need to get specs on. I dont care if the combo is good just if it's worth buying the lt1s over porting the stock heads

 

Go to a junkyard and get a used set? Might even get them for under $300. If not cheaper. You can't use the lt heads because they are reverse flow heads

 

A mild SOLID roller cam? Why?!

Vortecs ARE cheap. They are LT1 heads set up to work on regular 350's. Actual LT1 heads will not work.

 

I honestly don't know why I said solid roller. Guess I had one on my mind. It's a hydraulic flat tappet cam with .440 lift and .266 duration

 

Jay-read the thread in the engine swap section"cam choices".

I want you to know that in a long run I am seriously trying to save you money on a do-over.It is entirely possible with miss-matched parts to go backwards and when you don't even know the compression ratio of the pistons,you can't choose a cam,heads,or for that matter anything else.Convince yourself your going to wait,save more money,pay the dues you need to and do this once the right way.A mild build should be a well planned build also.

 

Gary has summed it all up completely. Listen to this advice or you'll find out you're going to have a host of headaches that cost a LOT of money.

 

Thank you for the advice and be damn sure I will heed it. What I meant on not caring if the combo was good was that I didn't want advice on what I should be buying/doing. Of course I care if the combo will mesh well together and if anyone sees a problem with the part combo let me know. The parts were given to me for free by a guy who I will contact to get full specs. He had all the parts in a mild build before me which I saw with my own eyes run fairly well, although it was tuned poorly. So I'm pretty confident

 

Jay-so that is a used cam.The lifters have to be installed in the same order as they rode on the cam or your going to need new lifters.Other wise it will wipe out the cam in short order.

 

Usually in these cases (in my opinion), it's better to take the high road and just buy all new lifters instead of hoping the previous person marked them correctly. I just don't trust people for such critical things, but that's just me.

If you KNOW he got the lifters marked correctly though, then they can be reused.

 

Buying new lifters. They are too cheap to risk some catastrophe by not buying.

 

you won't bolt 94-96 iron LT1 heads on an old school small block and have them work.. the cooling passages are different, as is the intake manifold bolt pattern..
vortec heads are based on the iron LT1 heads, but with a few upgrades that make them better. so skip the LT1 stuff and just get some vortecs. but be aware that you will need to get some work done to them if you want to run more than about .450 lift- the tops of the valve guides need to be cut down and screw in studs are recommended.