I'm putting together a extremely budget built 350 for a buddy of mine. I'm just honing out a std bore block, new flattop 4 valve relief pistons. A Comp cams 268 high energy cam and a performer intake. He's using a set of 1 1/2" primary tube headers because there the cheapest headers you can get for his application. He has a set of 882 heads. Would it be worth it to do any porting of the bowls, cleaning up some of the casting and polishing the exhaust port? Or, being such a mild performance build, would we not see any gains, and just be better off installing the heads in stock form?

what size valves do these have, some 882's had the 1.72 intake valve which is way small for a performance application

There 194 valves

oh my, how could i decode the heads to see if mine are 1.94 or not? (theyre installed already)

I have run many, many 882 heads on low $$$ engines and always had pretty good luck with them. They respond very nicely to some short side radius blending and cleaning up the casting flash out of the ports. Be absolutely sure to have those heads magnufluxed though because they are crack prone...even though they are a heavyhead casting they run a wierd 2 port heat crossover setup that makes the heads run a bit hotter than other heads. Also make sure they are flat...the extra heat can make them warp a bit. Throw a set of cheap Z-28 style springs (under $30) in there and you will have a pretty decent budget head. That whole setup will make around 300hp.

I am doing a build right now with 624 heads wich are the light weight casting of the 882. I did a full port and pollish on them. I am about to put every thing together right now and get it dyno when I am done. Here is the list of my combo (http://www.chevelles.com/forum/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=4;t=019368)