Well I have a little money to spend on the rebuild of my LT1 and I was wondering which would benefit me more? I currently have cast iron heads on the LT1 and will be porting and polishing these if I go with the hotcam kit. Will there be anything else I would need to buy for a hotcam kit?

Which would you do for an iron head LT1?

Get hotcam kit and port the iron heads
or
Get a set of stock Aluminum heads?

I already have the cam from an aluminum head lt1 out of a 4th gen as well and that is going in too.

 

The bone stock iron heads outflow MOST of the aluminums and only the best aluminums equal the flow of the irons, the compression advantage the aluminums have is to make up for the way they WASTE heat into the cooling system. I am not saying aluminums are bad just that they hold no magical advantage over iron. In this case I already covered the flow thing which alone makes swapping in stock aluminums foolish, the iron keeps heat in the chamber where it can be used to expand the gases and drive the piston better. On the otherhand the aluminums already have screwin studs, weight about 47lbs. less for the pair and are less likely to need a bit of pushrod clearancing with high lifts cams.

In short swapping the irons out for stock aluminum would be a complete waste of effort, you want aluminum port them period. On the cam swapping out a stock iron head motor cam in favor of the f-body cam would be just as foolish as the head thing do not even bother, especially if you have a b-body which would REQUIRE a stall or gears just to feel as fast as it did with the iron head cam. The f-body cam makes about the same torque but at a higher rpm and with more aggressive tuning and freer flowing intake than the b-body has. Blindly throwing f-body parts at a heavier car is a guaranteed way to frustrate yourself and waste money.
Tell us what the engine is in and we can help you make good decisions on what parts to use as the "right" combo varies signifigantly depending on weight use and setup.
The b-body combo is well matched to a stock b-body if you doubt that I can point you toward a guy running DEEP into the 12s with a stock longblock NA Impala and something like 11.3 on a 150 shot one internal engine work is springs and rockers , not bad for a "tiny" cam and crappy iron heads huh?

 

The engine will be in a 1990 Transam with a built 4l60e 3.73 gears with posi and a 3000 stall.

 

Get the hotcam kit and port the iron heads and convert to screw in studs. Get the Al heads if they can be had for free and have them ported and get the hotcam kit.

 

Only thing I would change is that actually the stock iron pressed studs have proven very reliable with the HOT cam. I might recommend beehives instead of the screwin studs the end result with be easier on the studs(already noted not a big deal with this cam) and less cost than the screwin conversion. A more aggressive cam and the pressed stud would become a concern though some have pushed them to .554 without stud issues. Also the springs in the HOT cam kit will not fit the iron heads anyway so you would either be having them opened up for the marginal LT4 springs or again I would just go beehives.