i have a 89 camaro with a 95 impalla lt1. mods include cai, headers with flows, pcmforless performance tune.
any way i was wandering if aluminum heads with a light home port job would be worth doing on my daily driver.

 

or help with search thanks

 

There would definitely be a very substantial weight savings by switching to the aluminum heads.

 

It's hard to say. It depends on how well you might be able to port heads.

If it were me, I would just get them ported by Lloyd Elliot or Phil at www.advancedinduction.com and know that they are done right.

Dan

 

can't afford to buy aluminum heads and spend $1100 on geting the ported too

 

I think your looking at about 30 lbs or so savings. We have iron heads on my wifes third gen LT-1 swap. Makes plenty of ported power. I don't see the point in switching honestly.

-Shannon

 

True you can just port the iron heads, they flow better anyways. You can buy used aluminum heads from this site for $200, take them to a machine shop and have them ported for a few hundred more if you cannot affod Ai or a place like it.

 

You might gain more power with a cam upgrade instead using the stock heads. Hot cam kit gives you cam, springs and 1.6 roller rockers for about $500. PCMFORLESS will re-flash the proper tune for $50.

 

from what i've read you have to do some machining to iron heads to make the hot cam kit work.

 

your better off just doing a cam swap on it. You'll see a bigger gain from that, then throwing the ported alum heads on there.

Mike

 

does any one know for sure if i can do the hot cam kit with out having the heads machined?

 

No go with alluminum heads, i can barely lift the iron heads I have sitting around, pieces of junk I have to say, sure they flow a bit better on the intake but not the exhaust, they also have pressed in rocker studs if I remember? And there isn't a wide veriety of valve springs you can use cuz they have very little room for even stock springs to fit, it'll be a wate of money IMHO.

buy some $200 alluminum heads, get Lloyd to port them, I think for a nice job its $400 to port, if you can't afford it, don't get a valve job, otherwise it'll be a bit more, but if you speak to lloyd, I mean he's so understanding and he doesn't suggest anything if he thinks you don't want to hear it, he's awesome that way. I'm sure he might even do a minor port job for you or whatever you wish and maybe a low cost valve job and some low cost valves if you like, but it'll still be wonderful compared to leaving those 100 pound monsters on, i think they weight 100 lb both while the alluminums are about 50 lb, so half the weight.

You might even leave the stock valves that'll most likely come with the $200 set of alluminum heads.

 

thats a good idea. i can't decide what i'm going to do with my income tax return. either heads and cam, or cheap paint job .

 

The iron heads are fine with the HOT cam but the HOT cam kit springs will not fit them. Cam is the first thing to replace if looking for more power from internal mods, the b-body cam is too small to support bigger heads. One of the b-body guys tried ported aluminums with a stock cam and lost 2hp, not saying alum9inums are bad just ported heads with that cam is a waste. I say if not replaceing them with ported heads leave them alone. The irons are good yes they weight more than aluminums(someone I trust weighed them and says 35lbs difference total) and yes they take a bit more effort(tapping for screwin studs and guide machining) to run anything bigger than the HOT cam but that far from makes them junk.

 

Damb I have a set of ported allums in my B-body right now with stock cam I better not loose power, there was prolly something else wrong, especially since I'm adding quite a bit of compression as well, perhaps your friend put stock f-body gaskets on, gained barely any compression over stock B-body, lost the CC heat that iron's provide and had a crappy port job? or something else who knows.

I'm expecting to gain quite a bit of power after ported allum heads with nice valve job and impy gaskets/LT headers/rockers/chromoly pushrods etc... on my B-body sitting here still waiting for a Jeg's catback to go on