I have a bare bones stock 85 350 truck motor that is in a hot rod.  It does have a Performer manifold and 600 Carb.  It has lake style headers (no muffler, no baffles, no back pressure).  I am looking to get little more power, I would like to be in the 300-350 HP range.  The car is only about 2000lbs has a TH350 with some beefed up internals and a shift kit.  The rear is a 2.79 and I have 30" tall tires.  The car gets off the line good but seems to be lacking in midrange  and top end power.  It is mostly a street car but will see some freeway going to shows.  I was hoping to get some help in picking out some heads that are not going to cost me $1,000 for the pair.  I was interested in the combo that Super Chevy used in their Chevy's gone wild article, Power Heads 882 heads and a small comp cam - 0.429/0.438 lift split, a 203/212 duration @50 and a 110-degree lobe separation angle.  I was really interested in the voodoo cam - 213/219 duration @50 .454"/.468" lift and 112 lobe sep. Can anyone provide an guidance for a novice?
Thank you in advance  

If you're looking to find some good flowing budget heads, see if you can score a set of L98 aluminum heads from an early C4 Corvette.

The next option is to check out Edelbrock's cam/head combos. For your motor you can probably get one for under $1000.

Another option is checking with Comp/RHS Cylinder Heads and see if they have a budget combo for you.

Another budget option is a set of iron Vortech heads.

The stock cam in your truck motor was pretty weak breathing through mid-range and top end, so going to a bigger cam with better duration and lobe sep is gonna help a bunch. I found that out when I did a cam swap on my stock '92 Chevy's 350.

I'll do some more checking and see what I can dig up to help you.  

you may wanna check out the Dart iron eagle heads.  They have excellent flow for under $800 a set.  They are the heads I plan to use for my Monte, with an edelbrock RPM cam.  

I have always liked the 186 heads, they came out of the factory with a 1.94 or 2.02 valve. They were made only in 1969 and 1970 and they all had 64cc combustion chambers.
So you might want to consider a thicker head gasket or a dished piston to get compression down to pump gas compression, prefeably 9:5:1.
You can search for a pair at swap meets or for sale locally in rebuildable condition for $200-$300 and you don't have to face the extra cost for a Vortec style intake and valve covers. Keep in mind that Vortec heads need to be machined to withstand a cam with over a .470" lift.  

The problem with the 186 heads (even though they are good performing heads) are they're almost 40 years old. The problem with older iron heads are finding ones that don't have cracks or other issues, while a pair might only cost you $200-$300, you could be looking at spending another $200-$300 to get them in good working order.

Minimum you'll need to have hardened valve seast installed in heads like these, which means you'll also need some valve grinding done. Add to that the cost of have ht eheads hot tanked and cleaned, then magnafluxed to check for any cracks around the seats. You'll also want to have them machined for screw-in rocker studs (these had pressed in studs from the factory).

As for the intake manifold bolt pattern, GM Performance Parts offers a cast iron Vortec Bowtie head that has both intake bolt patterns, so that won't be a problem. They offer this head in both small (Part No. 25534421) and large (Part No. 25534431) port versions, completely assembled and ready to run. And as these are brand new castings, you won't have to worry about cracks or other issues associated with older iron heads.