I called about their AFR190s and everything went smoothly until I mentioned the vette pistons raising my compression. I was told to remove my existing heads and measure the combustion chamber.

The guy I spoke with answered my questions, but really wasn't very interested in talking to me...it was like his favorite TV show was on at the same time or something.

So how do I do measure my combustion chamber? Hoist the engine into my truck bed, haul it across town to the shop that rebuilt my motor, have them measure it, and bring it back home?

 

K, take the head off, Naturallly.

get the combustion Chamber nice and Clean, and smear a little vaeline around the valve edge to prevent leaks.

next, You need several graduated cylinders of various size, but nothing larger than 50ML, and a small pipet ( raid the college chem lab )

Use a trasnparent peice of something you know is Flat... Glass would be best.

Plexiglass is a little easier to drill a hole through, tho.

So drill a small hole... 1/4" or So.

Lay it acrost the head, such that the hole is centerd approx over the combustion chamber.

Then, simply start filling it with water measured from the graduated clinders.

Keep track of how many mililiters it takes to fill it to the bottom of the hole drilled in the Glass/plexiglass.

1 mL = 1 CC so there you Go


Catch my Drift ?

 

Pull the valve covers off and get the casting numbers and then ask your local chevy dealer what the casting number was put on and if he has the specs for it. Also if you get the casting number post it and im sure someone here will know where to find out what the heads are and the specs. If they have been milled find out how much and im sure your local machine shop could tell you what the what cc the heads are now after the mill job from whatever combustion chamber size you had.

 

Do all that, and you will have a good guess at what they should be.

Do it my Way, and you Will know what they ARE.

 

It will be close enough if he got the right info on the heads, its not a nascar motor! If you really want to get exact you need to do it on every combustion chamber then you will REALLY know what you have!!

 

what a pain...just for a new set of heads

great info guys, i'll definitely look into it