Newbe help in picking 440 heads

If I were you I would just get the Stealth 440Source heads and be done with it. Ron

Funny... bodies can cross the border in multitudes from Mexico easier & cheaper than for goods to cross the border to a great neighbor like Canada.

WileERobby said:

Funny... bodies can cross the border in multitudes from Mexico easier & cheaper than for goods to cross the border to a great neighbor like Canada.

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Maybe I need to find a Mexican willing to carry heads across the border!:icon_smile:

get him to get a pair for me too

If its not gonna see the high side of 3500 RPM, just get them cleaned up and checked out.

Understand that for stock iron heads for a big block, those 915s are pretty desirable. Other words, the good ones to have. Just like anything else, you can easily shove as much money into them as you want. Or just bring them back to snuff. 915s have the bigger valves in them, and only so many are out there.

Jagboi said:

Actually, what I really should do is inspect the heads and go from there. If they are good, give the valves a quick lap, and slap it back on the block.

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All considered, that's what I would do. Given the purpose, new alum. heads are overkill....

I'm in favor of using the 915 heads, or any iron head for a stock or mild build. If you have a reputable shop do the work you are done. If you buy cheap mass produced heads you will likely have to fix them. I also like the iron heads because you can use a regular head gasket. Aluminum heads typically use the MLS gasket, or at least that's what I have seen on the Jap cars that have aluminum heads and iron blocks. And we all know those can run for a long time.

You will need hard seats installed for the unleaded gas and it's quite possible the intake valves will be OK to reuse after a facing. Put the 1.74" EX valve while they are in there cutting seats and bronze guides all around and should be good.

Only 100,000 miles and bores are shot with all ready one rebuild! What happened? With proper maintenance should have gone 150,000 easily with possibly a timing chain replacement or are we talking km instead of miles?

I went to the machine shop on Friday and had a chat with their head guy. We measured and discussed the build, and there are a number of ways that they can reduce cost based on the objectives. Some is reusing some of the existing parts in the valve train and other are just critical evaluation. These heads already have the larger valves, so that is a good reason to use them. The quote they gave me was assuming it needed everything. So I think we are on track to chopping a whole bunch of money out of this rebuild.

We did consider shipping them to the US to be done, as suggested here, but decided that with the revisions of scope the price would be more manageable, plus it's always nicer to deal with a local guy if there ever is a problem down the road. Having it done locally also saves a whole lot of hassle in packaging and dealing with shipping and customs etc. and that was worth paying for to my buddy.

Regarding the question above about "what happened", the short answer is we don't know. Car was last on the road in 1992, and odometer is showing just over 100,000 miles we presume, since it is a 5 digit odometer and the rest of the car does not look like it has 200,000 miles. (change to metric wasn't until 1977, so no KM). It was then partially restored and the owner either ran out of time, energy, money or all of them and it has been in storage for years. My buddy basically bought the car for the engine and the centre console, as that was a fairly rare option on 300's.

When we took the engine apart the left front bore had noticable wear ( I forget the numbering scheme if that's #1 or 2), but when it ran it didn't have any blue smoke. We didn't drive it enough to see if it used any oil, as the brakes were pretty marginal. Just did a few loops through the neighbourhood, then yanked the engine out .The head gasket was shot, it was clear that there was blowby between cylinders. Compression was fairly even, from a low of 120 to a high of 135. Seemed like low pressures for a 10:1 compression engine, I would expect to see about 160. Bearings looked very good though, not many miles on those, so maybe the "rebuild" consisted of putting in new rod and main bearings? Who knows. Crank looks good, it will just need a light polish. Pistons are shot, as there is excessive side clearance on the ring grooves, as I expected.

Go with edelbrocks performer right out of the box ! You wont be dissapointed.

Jagboi said:

I'm in Canada and things do cost more here. It's also an oil town, so there is lots of money for guys to spend on toys.
The breakdown was 10 hours of labour for surfacing the face, install new guides and hardened seats and assembly @$95/hr. I don't think the labour rate is out of line, if I go to a dealership labour is about $130-$140/hr.
Parts:
Intake valves:$138
Exhaust valves:$142
Springs: $118
Spring retainers: $84
Valve locks: $30
Valve Seals: $32
Spring locating cups $58
Exhaust valve seats: 58
Guides: $30

To answer the other question, I don't know how bad the heads really are. I didn't try and measure guide wear or flatness for example. I also didn't do a leakdown test before pulling it apart, simply because I didn't expect the bill to be anything close to that.

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Buy your own valves from mancini or someone like that, you dont even need new retainers on a stock build with stock type springs nor spring cups.

For that money...you would/should get a lot more like one piece pressed in guides 'not k line sleeves', ferrea valves, double springs with titanium retainers, cc, equalized chambers, bowl blended, hard seats on both intake and exhaust with a 5-7 angle serdi valve job and light surface cut for flatness.

shelve those heads if you aren't going to port them and use that same money on a set of 440 source heads that in the end will cost the same but flow WAY more in the low/mid lift.


It's about performance vs dollar spent no matter what level build.

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black bitch said:

Go with edelbrocks performer right out of the box ! You wont be dissapointed.

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Never use any head right out of the box, have them all checked first.