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Hard to tell without looking at them...
Generally with performance heads, you get what you pay for.
 

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Normally we come up here and tell you guy's you don't need high-priced heads on most units. We've made excellent power with the SB heads from "down-under", which are from the same foundry. We had one of these in our possession awhile back. The local warehouse asked our opinion, as they were contemplating taking the BB's on. They do handle the SB's at this time. Before we got to see the head, we actually had a negative opinion of it for this reason: there's no way a 2.300 intake valve was going to work in 320 CC runner. But we obliged them. We made some measurements, ran some tests, spent a total of some 2 hours, sent it back to the warehouse and they chose NOT to carry it at this time. That's liable to change however, it's my understanding many of these original's were shipped "as-is" but the "newer" ones will receive some major changes. This last part of this post is "hearsay" however. It was our opinion that there was going be a "labor-intensive" session before they would be usable. Thanks, Gary in N.Y.
 

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GOSFAST said:
... we actually had a negative opinion of it for this reason: there's no way a 2.300 intake valve was going to work in 320 CC runner... Thanks, Gary in N.Y.
Explain further, please. :confused:
I do know Dart offers a 2.300" intake option on their 325cc Pro I heads. I owned a pair...and ran well with them.
And I presently run a 2.300" intake in a set of AFR 335cc, which is just a 325cc head with full CNC porting.
 

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BillsCamino said:
Explain further, please. :confused:
I do know Dart offers a 2.300" intake option on their 325cc Pro I heads. I owned a pair...and ran well with them.
As of today we haven't needed a 2.300 valve to make 750 HP/700+Torque on our Hyd. Roller units. On a solid roller unit I would accept a 2.300 and about a 340 runner, but on these platforms (solid-rollers) we are past 850 HP, with still high torque. We have a little hard time delivering a BB up in this neck of the woods with under 700 Ft.Lbs. torque on a 540" platform. Once you get into 340+ runners you knock the air speed too far down. Now this is not "etched in stone", but if we can deliver 740+ HP and 700+ torque on a 540", 9.75:1 C.R., hyd. cam, we have no reason to alter the program. ALL this info here is pertinent to 93 octane units. One of our pump-gas units may, and I said MAY, have won the Comp Cams "Pump-Gas Shootout" back in 2004. All the mag's claimed Robert Schmidt had a Pat Musi unit under the hood, but that turned out to be false. I did his unit back in 1997 and made 756+ on pump (540, 10.75:1, solid roller), I believe we used a set of 2X's then. I don't know if our's was still in his car or not, but it wasn't one of Pat's. Thanks Gary in N.Y.
P.S. 2.300" intakes don't work (here), or for a better choice of words, would be a better fitted to a runner larger than 320. Honestly, up here not enough people pay attention to torque numbers, they are "key" to moving heavy "door-slammers". Moreso than high HP. If you're "low" on torque you're going to find you will need more "gear". We like 3.90's/4.10's in the high 9's bracket. When we delivered Robert Schmidt's first unit, we made in install 4.10's, he was using a "Jerico" 5 speed at that time (1997). By the way it was a 1967 Chevelle "show-car". Please, this is not to impress anyone, which is what we've been accused of trying to do. NO ego trips here. (Add) His unit's HP peaked at 6100 RPM. I apologize for missing some RPM numbers here.
Those are VERY important to us.
 

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Discussion Starter · #9 ·
Would it HURT to have a 2.30 valve? I'm not sure if these heads are 300cc or 320, the ad says 2 different things.

Gary, are these heads ready to go w/just throwing valves and springs at them, or do they need a lot of massaging?
 

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I would think it would have more to do with the bore size/shrouding than the intake runner. We all know plenty of folks on this site that have installed larger valves in factory heads and had good results (without drastically altering the runner shape, if at all). It would also depend on whether the combo warranted the additional airflow and the rest of the parts were optimized to support it (intake, carb, cam, cylinder bore, etc...).

my $0.02
 

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Sounds like a bunch of hair splitting going on to me. Yea they are "cheap" heads, but everyone scuffed at the sb heads when they came out because they where "cheap", so they couldnt be any good.

These heads are going on a 496 engine with a .600 plus hyd roller cam in a 3400 pound car with 3.73 gears and TH350 with 4000 stall running 11.0x. I think they will be a large improvement over the 781s on the car now.

Yall can bench race and speculate all you want in the mean time, but we will try them out and have you some real world A B results in a few months :thumbsup: :)
 

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Discussion Starter · #12 ·
Dont forget to let us know how they work out!
 

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I don't know how they can advertise flow numbers for bare heads that don't even have seats cut.

You can bet your bottom Dollar that when someone does that you will find that their flow claims are a little on the optimistic side . . .
 

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Eric68 said:
I don't know how they can advertise flow numbers for bare heads that don't even have seats cut.

You can bet your bottom Dollar that when someone does that you will find that their flow claims are a little on the optimistic side . . .
Yea, I will have to agree that the flow numbers are likely exaggerated. The Pro SB heads claimed pretty big flow numbers too. But, when I had a set of the SB heads flowed they matched the .500 and .600 numbers, but came up short in the low lift areas. But, overall, the SB heads work well for what they are. I hope to be able to get these BB heads flowed just to see for future reference, and to compair to the 781s.

We dont expect these BB heads to match a high end head like the AFR or Profiler, but I think they will pick up about .4 on the combo they are going on. I have been doing alot of research the last few months on cylinder head flow dynamics and have convinced myself that the higher piston speeds and accelleration rates of the 4.250 stroked BBs are not all that suited to the small 2.77 cross section area of the 781/049 heads.

@.600 A very well prepped set of 781s flow around 295cfm. My 074 square port heads flow 305, the 990 GM heads flow 292 and the Brodix RR flow 340. These ebay heads claim 360:rolleyes: . But even if they only flow 335 or so, that is still a 80 hp improvement potential over the 781s. I'm excited and really looking forward to testing these heads. If they suck, we can always stick the ovals back on:D.
 

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I have a set on my motor now they worked great on my 505 but are way to small for my 555 that they are on now . I have a new set of CFE 385cc cnc heads going on over the winter along with a new cam to wake up the beast.
 

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Nice Chevelle Ronnie, nothing like bright red. That thing is flying! How did the car run with the 505? What cam did you run, and did you have any other heads on the 505 before the Pro 320s? It sure is nice to see you running that quick with those heads. Did you have them flowed or ported? If they are anything like the SB Pros, they are cast so nice there is not really much you can do as far as extra porting work.
Good luck with your 385s!
Scott
 

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Rons70SS said:
I have a set on my motor now they worked great on my 505 but are way to small for my 555 that they are on now . I have a new set of CFE 385cc cnc heads going on over the winter along with a new cam to wake up the beast.
Hey Ron, what kind of times were you running with the 505? got specs? thanks. Is the car weight with driver? Running 9.70's and its not awake yet? good luck!!
 

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I ran a best of 9.91 @ 134 with my 505, it broke the oil pump pick up off in the 1/4 finals at super chevy and chunked a rod. I had a set of mildly ported factory sq. ports on the motor at first and the best it went was [email protected] just added the pro 320cc heads and some mild cleanup on the ports and bowls. the cam I was using was a custom grind from REED CAMS .772 lift
284/290 dur at .050 107 lobe centers. I was on a tight budget when my motor blew so I tried the same cam and heads on my new short block and went [email protected] first time out. but I know the new cam and heads will wake it up looking at going very deep into the 9's in street trim.ALL MOTOR
 

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Ok, I have the heads now. These are the ones from the auction at the beginning of this thread.

First off, these heads are far from being ready to assemble. The guides are .015 under and the seats are very wide. You could use a 2.250 intake valve if you want, but the seat IDs are cut straight down into the port and you would have no throat to seat transition blend angle/radius, I think a 2.300 would work best. I like the castings, but expect to spend quite a bit of cash at the machine shop to get them finished and ready to run, they are definantly only simi finished.

The intake ports where advertized as 1.650 wide X 2.400 tall(std sqr port size). They are not. More like 1.800 wide X 2.100 tall. They will take quite a bit of port matching to fit a regular square port intake gasket. But there is plenty of meat to work with and will open up fine. And about an inch down the port the ports appear to get taller. Its looks like once the first inch of port is opened up to the gasket it will blend very nicely. I have a guess as to why they cast them this way;).

I guess I'll let yall know how they perform when we get them on the car and get to the track.

The picture shows(in order) a 781, this "Pro Race", an 074 and 990 head all stacked side to side.




And this one is a pic of the "Pro Race" chamber.



Not as fancy as some of the stuff some others on TC are running, but I think it will be interesting to see how they do.:beers:
 
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