Is it better to port your lt1 heads or buy new heads?

 

Depends on your goals.

There's lots of power to be made on stock LT1 castings.

 

Costwise, it may not make a significant difference. One needs to first consider what you plan to use the car for, i.e, street/strip, strip only, daily driver, etc.

At any rate, when deciding to port heads one should consider, the labor for the machine work, the cost of larger valves if wanted, new springs, roller rockers---and of course setting the heads up after the machine work has been performed. IMHO, porting the heads w/o doing the whole valve train is not the way to go.

One the other hand, if one was to opt for completed heads, whether ported Stockers, or another Aftermarket set, you need only consider the total cost and wouldn't need to spend that much tiime figuring out how much it will cost to have your own heads done--and you would already know what the flow numbers were---assuming they are correct---and you would probably be able to use your core as partial payment.

LT1 heads with a good port job and a quality vavle train will satisfy most street and strip applications, depending on the cam selected.