First off, is there a difference between Double Humps and Fuellies? What is it?

Is there a way to hook up an egr valve to these?

Are these heads good for a low budget buildup?

 

Camel humps are fuelie heads. Biggest problem you'll find though is that most dont come with accessory holes in them. Therefore theres no place to mount modern bracketry, alternator, a/c etc.

 

They're good up to a point. It depends on how much work needs to be done with them. If you have to get larger valves installed, screw in studs, new guides and seats etc then it's cheaper to buy some replacement heads like Darts. They flow better out of the box and already have all that work done to them.

Don't forget that those old heads are 30 years old. They won't be mint and will need work. If you want to do a low budget buildup then go find some 997 or 993 heads. They have better castings, can be ported more for better air flow, they have larger combustion chambers so when installing larger valves, the valves are unshrouded.

The only people that still need those old castings are class racers that must run original casting parts or someone who's building a "number matching" car. From a performance standpoint there are much better heads to use from the aftermarket for less money than what it would cost to have those old heads rebuilt.

 

Just a correction to something mentioned above, "Fuelie" heads do have the Camel Humps casted into them, but not all Camel Humps (very few actually) are "Fuelie" heads.

"Fuelie" heads were on the fuel injected engines of the era, early to mid '60's IIRC. These heads are somewhat rare and very collectable to the restorer for numbers matching apps.

Camel Humps came in a variety of flavor with either 2.02/1.60 valves or 1.94/1.50 valves.

Someone may be able to pop in and list the exact casting numbers of the "fuelies", I sure can't.

 

True "fuelie" heads have angle plugs and were casting 292.

 

Ahhh...only a true racer would know that...an most likely an old one

 

true on the F.I., you can still buy 462 (i believe) camel hump castings new from gm for like $275 each assembled. some of the originals didnt have bolt holes, but others did (usually from camaros). just my .02

 

The oldest "fuelie" heads I can remember were the 461 casting... they came on the 327 Vettes from the early 60s. They had straight plugs and of course no bolt holes. The 292s were some of the ones that came along later; they were very typical on the 302s of the late 60s, and did have the late-model feature of bolt holes. The most common of the "double-hump" castings is probably the 186; those came on 350 4-barrels in 69 & 70, in everything from Camaros to sleds like Impala station wagons (the best place to find them, actually) to Chevelles and Monte Carlos. The all-around best ones are probably the 040 casting which had angle plugs; I don't recall them ever coming on any motors installed in cars, maybe crate motors, but mostly over the counter like we'd buy Fast Burn heads today.

Like Stephen pointed out, they were the best there were in their day; but now, with modern CNC casting technology, there are a bunch of companies in the aftermarket making castings with flow properties far superior to anything those old ones are capable of. And, when you add up the cost of taking a set of basic junkyard castings and working them up for hi-perf use with screw-in studs, guide plates, spring pockets to accomodate springs that will allow over .500" of lift, positive guide seals, new guides, high-flow valves, and so on, you will discover that you will have more money in old cast-iron junk than you would have spent just going out and buying a pair of aluminum aftermarket heads.

 

I've got a set of 461s on my IROC and the lack of accessory holes drives me crazy. They're getting yanked as soon as I can afford AFRs. If I ever get the car running right, I'll let you know how they perform.

 

OBTW, I should have answered the original questions:

• 1. The fuel-injected Vettes got a new design head in 63, which everybody started calling "fuelie" heads. The casting mark on them was 2 humps. Over the next 10 years a number of other heads with similar combustion chamber design were made, all having the same casting mark. As the quality of gasoline declined in the late 60s and early 70s, they modified the chamber design slightly to reduce the tendency toward detonation; heads with this feature also got the newly introduced accessory bolt holes. So, all true "fuelie" heads (461 casting) are "double-hump" heads, but the reverse is not true; on the other hand, there are better "double-hump" castings for modern build-ups than the actual "fuelie" heads.
  
• 2. They have everything needed for EGR. They bolt right into it all. For example I have a pair of 186 double-humps with bolt holes in my 83 car, which recently passed CA smog.
  
• 3. If you can find a set with the bolt holes, for less than about $200, that don't need major machine work, yes. Otherwise, if you have to replace valves and guides and so on, you'll end up spending more on them than you will buying a set of new S/R Torquers, and you'll still have an inferior head.

Make sense?

 

I know somone running 11.06 flat without nitrous using those 202 fuelie heads. 1978 camaro. Its fully gutted and has slicks and all that crazy crap, and its also a 383 stroker motor, with a cast crank i think... its got a transbrake and 3800 Stall and all the goodies for drag racing. Hes selling it too, for $4000.00 I would be interested but its *not* a street car.