I'm not even considering the "peanut" ports with this topic but, it seems just about any BBC oval port head can make decent to very good power.
Of course, some flow better in stock form(#049) than others but, I can't ever recall hear someone say "stay away fom the #xxx oval ports....they don't flow well."
Comments?

There are large oval port heads out there that came on the heavy-duty tall deck truck motors that only have 1.84" and 1.94" intake valves and 1.66" exhaust valves installed but they should be reamable(Sp?) so that big valves can be installed if wanted..

And then there are the squared-off combustion chambered large oval port SMOG heads that are almost quenchless.. And believe it or not, they are something like 113 cc's but look one heck of alot bigger b/c they are shallow...

And even a good set of worked over big valve peanut port heads will do nicely on a mild 396/402/408 as long as you don't go stupid on the rpm's, imho...

pdq67

Originally posted by pdq67:

And even a good set of worked over big valve peanut port heads will do nicely on a mild 396/402/408 as long as you don't go stupid on the rpm's, imho...

pdq67 which seems hard not to......since these like to rpm .....even if you seem to build it just for 5000 to 5500 rpms it just seems like its not strong enough to give ya the performance your looking for. it just seems to feel better if you give it a 6500-7000 rpm limit on these motors cause it just opens more doors to make power to let you go where you want to go. but then again i guess if your building a tow truck i bet those peanut ports would do wonders for pulling a trailer down the highway at 2000 rpms.

I've got #390 bathtub heads {closed chamber}, on my 454 with trw lead-filled flattops, and with small valves, shrouding isn't too much of an issue, but with bigger valves i could sure see how it wouldn't want to breath next to the combustion chamber wall. The semi-closed are probably the best iron heads. Don't need much of a bump on your piston to get compression, don't need as much timing, piston might be a little lighter, there's a little more room for big valves, yada yada. But if you're doing it on the cheap, the heads you got are probably the best ones, 'cause you already own them.