What heads do I need?

Ya I've been wondering about solid rollers? If they need as much adjustment or any really at all. If you want a serious motor, a solid cam is definately needed. Also if there is as much racket versus a mechanicle.  

Thanks for all the feedback! And hesh I should be contacting you soon about the heads. And you were also going to include roller rockers correct? Will my 535 lift cam still work well with that set up?  

if that is a mech. hydralic cam, That is a massive cam. If your motor after you put it back together seems to really lag on the bottom, You might want to back your cam down to the 490" area 535 is mostlikely overkill. But you never know, also that is a race stall converter, might want to back it down to like a 2500. The thing is, is that if it is running good that thing should light up the tires fairly easily in the dry posi. aswell. It should be a 11.5-11second car maybe even high 10's. that car should scare you, Also F.Y.I to engage a stall converter you usually just hold the brakes down it should start to slip when throttle is appplied. A stall converter is a clutch for a automatic which with your's has a stall out to 3500rpms before engaging. Hence a 3500stall.

There is a reason why gm came out with a new design for street or race vortec head. Because the vortec ports make alot of power stock unported. for dirt cheap The main thing is I think they were just kinda ugly or not good looking to alot of people.  
But  these edels are a piece, aluminum and they accept standard or vortec valvecovers. 575" of lift out of the box I believe.

you have a 500hp motor with those heads ported and a solid cam. If it's running good
450+hp and ftlbs is what it should make with what you have now  with headers and exhaust. Unless your tune is off or someother underlying problem.

What I would do is find a 383 e-tec article and copy the setup then you would know what kinda power to expect. beleave it or not headerpipe diameter can be worth 10-20hp your carb could be worth upto 20hp but the 750 doublepumper is used with good results regualarly  

1 other thing a cam that big probably needs 11.5-1+ compression ratio's to run correct. I have no idea what your's is I'd guess 9.5-10-5? might wanna think about a little smaller cam to go with your comp ratio.  

Just to let you know the E-Tec 200cc heads do come with the Comp steel roller Rockers which i would guess to have less than 5000 miles and the heads are completely redone in the bags for 850.00. Also the cam i ran with these heads hyd. roller 234-244@50DUR 510-510 Lift on a 383 with 10.7 to 1 comp with a 2700 stall and 3.73 gears with a turbo 350 in a 90 chev 1/2 ton 4 wheel drive that ran flawless. At 30 mph i could drop it to first and light the tires up like they were'nt on the truck.

Good day all  

how much lift does that equal in a mech. hyd. cam? 470-480

I'm sure it lights up the tires like it's not on the truck. a 383 should be scary in a chevelle there torque monsters. They definately sound different than a 350.
People just go way overboard on there cams and wonder why they have no bottomend power and or topend power. 383's have to be built well to turn high  rpms.  

heshtesh: A balanced choice between torque and high rpm is a great thing when you're building a daily driver with performance features. I never said that aluminum heads are not superior to cast iron. They are in almost every respect. I'm addressing this from a low cost build aspect which I'm assuming is the case here the way this question was asked. If money is not an issue then I agree, aluminum heads are the way to go in a high performance build. In My case I don't build for daily driver use. My beast is built for high performance at every level and I could care less about fuel economy or passing an emmissions test for driving on the street.
In refernce to the issues of aluminum heads and treating them like cast iron heads for street use - I can't tell you how many trashed aluminum heads I've seen resulting from blown head gaskets, over heating damage, and running an engine just a little too long with a coolant leak into the chambers. Overheating will warp the heck out of an aluminum head while the cast iron block surface doesn't suffer as much and may not have to be milled true under the same punishment. Coolant will pit the combustion chambers on aluminum and make them look like the surface of a sponge sometimes. The aluminum on the perimeter of the chamber will bubble sometimes where it meets the cast iron block from overheating. I've also seen small sections of aluminum heads blown off into the exhaust rendering them trash. A cast iron head will take much more more abuse without such catastrophic damage - was my point. They are much more forgiving to punishment although they will warp and crack too under excessive punishment.  

Redbeast1: Point well taken, guess i do so many thing to avoid problems sometimes i forget the way things are normally done. What i do to avoid most of the problems you mentioned is to have my heads o-ringed then i run a head gasket with the ring embeded in the head gasket.  

fyi... I have a set of 496 double hump heads on motor that are worked out a bit and cleaned up alot and I'm making 671hp and didn't spend a dime, just some time with a grinder.  

main thing is don't run your motor hot, edelbrock wouldn't use cheap aluminum. That's the only bad thing with aluminum is keeping the heat down  

Redbeast: I am not planning on having my car as a daily driver. Only a joyride on a nice day when I feel the urge to bring it out. I might make a few passes with it but it won't be a consistant strip or street car. Just a toy basically. So for my occasional cruise/drag would you suggest the aluminum or cast iron?  

Man get some dart iron eagles and forget about it.
You will not regret that you did they are perfect for a joy ride type of vehicle or racing.  
Professional hi-performance engine builder

Horsepower sells Engines and torque wins races.

Lisen to pontiacman2, he knows his *** The heads I have are off a 75 327ci. vette. Yes they are factory iron heads and this motor puts out 671hp. You can do the same thing with both aluminum or cast iron. Iron heads put up with more abuse.  

Think they stopped producing 327s in 1968 so i'm thinking 1965? Also you must have a nice super charger or a big nitrous system to be producing that kind of power with those heads.  

Your right, it was a 65 327. But no super, no nitrous. just a lot of money in a machine shop. Good friends in nascar don't hurt eather.