[Semper Fi 71]

found these on craigslist, and thinking about buying them. i have a 350 with stock heads right now. would these be worth machine shopping or should i wait for vortec? are these better than a standard set of heads? thanks guys

SBC Camel Hump Heads Bare Casting

Garage Stored and oiled.

Virgin heads with no grinding or accessory bolt holes. 1966 Casting year.


Casting#: 3890462
J17
K8

64cc combustion chamber

$100 (pair)... firm on price... NEXT STOP.... EBAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Tom Mobley]

64cc chamber, cast iron, liable to be too high CR for aggressive tuning on pump gas. they'll need guides, hard exhaust seats, screw-in studs and guideplates, surfaced, upgraded to 2.02/1.6 valves, a competition valve job and bowl porting if you want any power. Not to mention hardware. You can probably buy something new cheaper.

you have a 71? these heads don't have mounting pads and bolt holes in the ends.

 

[cv67]

What Tom said, pass.

Nothing like new.

 

[Semper Fi 71]

ok thanks guys, im on a head hunting rampage. but.... on a budget.... a small budget. so im slowly learning what is good and what isnt. but nothing gets by all u guys, thanks again.

 

[Highway Star]

What "year" is your engine from? Has it ever been taken down and rebuilt? Do you know what heads are on it right now?

 

[trmnatr]

ok thanks guys, im on a head hunting rampage. but.... on a budget.... a small budget. so im slowly learning what is good and what isnt. but nothing gets by all u guys, thanks again.

Opinions are good to have

If you can dump ~300 in them they will be good.

With a set of 291's, same basic head but small valve, we converted to 2.02" and bowl ported. NO INTAKE RUNNER PORTING. Exhuast runners are ported smooth and polished. Screw in studs and guide plates (many have roll pinned studs on budget deals years ago)

We made ~530hp with the head I just explained on a GM Block, GM Nodular Crank 400 and ran 10.teens @ 131-133mph

When he parted ways from the team he got the engine in a dragster, 8.60's @150mph+

Your decision..................

As to the seats, thats true but I have a 327 out there that has a ton of miles without the hardened seats

He goes to the airport as I told him too and puts 1-2 cap fulls of 100LL aviation fuel in the tank to help and the seats looked great at freshen up after many miles on unleaded,, dont let that scare you

You can make more power with aftermarket heads, no doubt

 

[RB69SS396Conv]

Doesn't matter how much power somebody else made out of "a" 327 with similar ones. There's ALOT more to choosing heads than that.

Those heads don't fit your car.

For the amount of money you will have to spend to make them competitive and even half-way long-term survivable, you will be about ¾ of the way to BRAND NEW aftermarket ones. $300 will barely get them FRESHENED UP, let alone PREPPED. Valves, springs, and hardware ALONE will be more than that. Then, there's LABOR, on top of that.

SO let's say, you pick up the cores for $200 (just a guess, feel free to fill in the blank differently); springs, retainers, keepers, studs, guide plates, another $300; yerbasic valve job, $150; you're into em for $650 at that point, BEFORE ANY PORTING. Just THAT ALONE took you halfway to new Darts or something.

And then, when you get all done with all that, your accessories (alt, PS) won't bolt to them.

Times have changed. We have better options these days, than preening and massaging old junk stock stuff that doesn't fit; NO MATTER WHAT we all used to do "back in the day". Hell "back in the day" I used to live in a cave and burn trees to keep warm and throw stuff at my food as it ran by me just to slow it down enough that I could take a bite out of it; I don't do any of that any more either. There's better ways to get by, now.

Those are not the heads for you.

Can't use em. Don't want em. Keep looking.

 

[FRYNTYR]

Nothing wrong using a set of cammel humps with stock valve size and press in studs. A pocket port job and keep the spring pressure with in reason and they'd do great over a set of smogger open chamber heads as well as affordable if you don't get bent over on shop work and parts.

You can get a set of 1.94s done here for $400 with new valves, Z-28 type springs and retainers, keepers, guides, and pocket ported.

For a basic street motor and on a budget, that's affordable.

If you want a big power jump, you're going to need to put money into more than just heads.

It's easy for all of us to sit here and spent your money. Heck, where do you draw the line. Save a little more and buy a little better, well you can do that FOREVER and you'll still have something you could have upgraded that was already upgraded a few levels. If that's the case don't do anything and hold out until you save up enough money to buy that twin turbo'd LS-3 ready to bolt in your car.

 

[Semper Fi 71]

haha ok thanks guys. still a neeewwwbeeee. but thank you very much. i think ill just buy the ls3 turbo. this definately wont be the last time you'll see my name on the question forum.

 

[Yellomalibu]

Hopefully a collector gets those heads. Restoring cars with original parts will get harder and harder as the years tick by due to us "hot rodding" so much stuff.

I don't know if it's just my age showing or if I have noticed that finding parts is getting harder... but my vote is to leave the vintage stuff for people who are restoring.

There are SO many aftermarket heads (and blocks, cranks, rods, etc) that make WAY more power than the vintage stuff did.