Aluminum heads worth it?

[HEMI-ITIS]

Todd at http://www.mopartsracing.com/ is a vender for many cylinder heads and gaskets. He is also a very knowledgable engine builder. Give him a call and bounce your ideas off him and get great prices at the same time!
If you tell him I sent ya he will charge you 10% more

 

[BSB67]

I'm pretty sure Greg does not do head & exhaust gaskets.

#5983

 

[HEMI-ITIS]

#5983

I stand corrected He only makes the 440 cause that what he runs

He does not make any hemi intake or exhaust

 

[mike isabella]

I'm looking into the possibility of upgrading the stock 452 heads on my 440 to aluminum heads. I was looking at the edelbrock E street 5093 heads. The motor is pretty mild, has about 9.7 CR, TTI headers, performer intake and currently has a comp XE268h cam in it. Car has 3.23 gears and a 2500 stall convertor. Car runs great and pulls hard, but I was wondering if there would be a noticeable performance gain by changing heads.

 

[mike isabella]

Alum heads are nice. Guy to ask is john420mn@aol.com I think he has a set to sell also.

 

[wyrmrider]

IMHO you are not going to see a big gain with your chevy cam and 3.23 gears
just not enough lift to make those heads work (or area under the flow curve)
how did you get the compression (what pistons)
what's your deck clearance
if you can get some quench with the new heads you could make a difference with it
post up a compression test
power brakes?

 

[Gpuller]

Shim gaskets are advertised from 0.020" to 0.022", depending on the supplier/source. Last set I used, nearly forever ago, measured 0.022". Steel shim gaskets are used successfully on aluminum heads

Good info to know.

 

[Napoleon1991]

IMHO you are not going to see a big gain with your chevy cam and 3.23 gears
just not enough lift to make those heads work (or area under the flow curve)
how did you get the compression (what pistons)
what's your deck clearance
if you can get some quench with the new heads you could make a difference with it
post up a compression test
power brakes?

Pistons are KB flat tops with 2 valve reliefs (not 4 valve reliefs like i stated earlier, its been awhile so I forgot). 2.067 compression height with 5cc valve reliefs. Stock deck height but resurfaced. Pistons are .023 down (probably more like .021 or .022 since the shop took 1 or 2 thou off when they resurfaced it.

 

[67Satty]

I just swapped from 452s to Edelbrock 84cc E Streets on a similar build. Go for it, you'll be glad you did! And yes, I noticed the extra HP the first time I pulled into the burnout box and the tires lit up so much quicker. The I got my time slip and saw that it picked up a couple tenths in the 1/8 on my very first run. It also idles and runs smoother and gets better MPG since making the change. And the plugs are easier to change.

 

[Napoleon1991]

Thanks for all the responses everyone. I bought the Edelbrock 5093 heads and just got them back from the machine shop and on the motor. Couldn't be happier. Its a night and day difference from the 452 heads. Motor runs, sounds, and idles soooo much better. If anyone else is considering doing this, definitely have a competent shop look the heads over before installing. Valve runout out of the box was .006 on most of the valves, requiring a valve job. They also have to mill the heads .004 to get them flat. Valve spring pressures were also way above advertised specs at 155 lbs seat pressure.

 

[wyrmrider]

what is always suggested -fix otb heads
that spring pressure may the reason for cam failures
hard to break in by taking the inners out of those springs
what gasket did you end up using?

 

[Bee1971]

E Street 5090/5093 Does not use a dual valve spring

Single spring with a inner dampner

These are the springs on E Street Heads and some RPM Heads

#5792

https://www.summitracing.com/parts/edl-5792

 

[Napoleon1991]

what is always suggested -fix otb heads
that spring pressure may the reason for cam failures
hard to break in by taking the inners out of those springs
what gasket did you end up using?

The shop was able to get the spring seat pressure down to 130lbs by removing the shims. I used a .027 HG from cometic

 

[wyrmrider]

you know I was just being funny with the inner spring thing
Inner spring would have been easy to break in if you needed that much spring pressure- which you do not
glad it was easy to fix with shims
was it otb with those shims

cometics interested in seeing how it runs, how octane tolerant is it?
post up your compression for future readers of this thread
cheers

 

[Napoleon1991]

you know I was just being funny with the inner spring thing
Inner spring would have been easy to break in if you needed that much spring pressure- which you do not
glad it was easy to fix with shims
was it otb with those shims

cometics interested in seeing how it runs, how octane tolerant is it?
post up your compression for future readers of this thread
cheers

Yeah they came out of the box with shims for some reason. The heads CCed at 84.6 after milling the .004 off. Compression is almost exactly 10:1. Total timing is 37-38 on 93 octane with no pinging. Couldnt get timing past 31 before with the 452 heads, and even then it would ping a little when it was warm out.

 

[HEMI-ITIS]

Inner springs do break sometimes..........MPH was off as well at a little ET.

 

[IQ52]

The shop was able to get the spring seat pressure down to 130lbs by removing the shims. I used a .027 HG from cometic

I don't know why this shim thing bothers me so much, but it does. I guess it is because, in my figuring, it would take at least a .060" shim to drop 25# installed height. The spring locator with those heads is .060" thick. So those heads came with a .060" shim under the locator? They didn't remove the locator, call it a shim, and set the spring directly in the aluminum spring pocket did they?

Hopefully I'm worried about nothing because they were smart enough to check the valve runout and mill the head flat.

 

[wyrmrider]

great points IQ
not only will the damper chew up the head the spring dancing around will cost rpm
too bad we did not get involved earlier
so check those shims
maybe the locators back in and some +.050 keepers or retainers

op do you really need that much advance with those heads
I've been fighting those open chamber heads for 50 years
tempus fugit

 

[Napoleon1991]

great points IQ
not only will the damper chew up the head the spring dancing around will cost rpm
too bad we did not get involved earlier
so check those shims
maybe the locators back in and some +.050 keepers or retainers

op do you really need that much advance with those heads
I've been fighting those open chamber heads for 50 years
tempus fugit

I just checked and the locators are still in place, only the shims were removed. I'm glad that was mentioned, because that hadnt even crossed my mind. Not sure if I need that much timing advance, but the motor really seems to respond well to it. Also not sure how accurate my aftermarket timing tab is, so it could actually be less.

 

[wyrmrider]

well check it out as part of tuning
you might need more initial, a limiter, and less total
too much total can be hard on parts and you can't always hear detonation
I sure feel better about those locators
bet IQ does too- shout out-- a big "good catch"
was just trying to propose a fix without removing the heads
do post a compression check
cheers