ggallred1983

I am going to park my beautiful Roxy (1996 C4 LT1) This winter at my mechanics house and I plan on dropping about 5-6k dollars into her. I have been looking at a few things that I want to do. First I know that I want to keep her naturally aspirated! No Blowers or Turbos. I have found the trick flow top end, plan on doing the rear gears, and a beautiful borla exhaust with hooker long tube headers. Any better suggestions???

DanielRicany

Yes, I do have a suggestion. Make sure to properly match your combination, not only with your engine, but match your engine to the type of gears you will be buying.

ggallred1983

Please explain, how do I make sure of such things? Thanks for the input

cv67

Usually really worth it
Whats the PN on the kit?

Goals, driving style, expecations from upgrades?

Wheel Stander

The Trick Flow kit is a good value and will give you solid performance. Earlier this year, I had the kit installed on my 92 LT-1. The valves are slightly larger than those on the stock cylinder heads and the specs on the camshaft are almost identical to those on the GM "hot cam". I also added a 2500 rpm stall converter, 3.54 gears, a 54mm throttle body and American Racing long-tube headers (which happened to fit perfectly). One thing you may need to be aware of ... the roller rockers from Trick Flow have a slightly higher profile than some others, so we needed to do a little grinding to the underside of the stock valve covers for proper clearance. All-in-all, I ended up gaining about 125 horsepower and it's running high 12's with street tires.

ggallred1983

part number is TFS-K304-430-400, I'm looking for more off the line speed and top end performance. faster but don't want a race car. I drive only in the summer, never in storms or rain, NO SNOW!! 125 or more horse would be perfect!!! thanks for all the response this is perfect!!

aklim

I had a bad experience with the TFS heads that cost me a LPE short block so I wouldn't go that route. I don't know about Hookers on a C4 but I didn't like the quality on a F-body. I went with TPIS instead.

As to the rest, it is sound.

I don't know what you are doing for gears though. What are you going to do about calibration of the ECM? I would talk to a speed shop that does that sort of work. I got the install done locally and dragged it 5 hours away to MN for tuning of the ECM.

I would let the tuner advise you on the combination and the gears since you have to get it all to work together instead of simply slapping parts and hoping they will work.

Wheel Stander

A couple of things I forgot to mention. Mine is an automatic and has the Dana D36 rear end assembly, so I couldn't go with gears stiffer than 3.73. I would have prefer to have used 4.10s, but that would have meant switching to the D44 assembly .... an investment I wasn't willing to make. Also, unlike some of the more expensive cylinder heads on the market (for example, Advanced Induction), the ones from Trick Flow come without any performance valve job, porting and/or polishing. That's one of the reasons why Trick Flows are less expensive ... still a good product, but not top-of-the-line. If you're looking for better performance and are willing to spend more money, I would recommend contacting Lloyd Elliott or, if you're in the Mid-Atlantic area, you might try Karl Ellwein. Karl's an LT-1 specialist and his reputation is impeccable.

96 lt-4

Still worthwhile to let a competent machine job check out the heads before bolting them on.No matter what you do it will need to be tuned before you drive it.Don't risk doing major damage running it lean without a tune.
Exhaust is preference.I used stainless works long tubes but if I were to do it again I would probably look for a deal on a used set and would consider ARH or even OBX on a budget.
It will be much louder with aftermarket exhaust and consider whether or not you have to run cats for local emission laws.
Heads,cam,1.6 roller rockers,headers,and a tune could net you 100 horses.
Are you going to run a stall converter?
With the automatic I would run 3.45/3.54 gears at the most if you plan on doing any extended highway driving.

cv67

x2!! Most production valve jobs can usually be improved on.
Havent seen Trick Flows before....Cleaning up the chamber to seat,seat to bowl transitions and a little short turn work (minor)can net some real nice gains. Polishing ports is worthless. A head doesnt have to be huge to make good power. Just a little love in the right places.

aklim

I'd lose their hardware if he is insistent on it. Because of the pushrods, all on the passenger side getting loose, the spring broke and the valve hit the piston which wrecked an otherwise excellent short block. Driver side was ok. Passenger side valves were all wobbling. This was me ordering the upgraded package.

cv67

Were your rocker studs double checked to see if they were torqued down? Could be a cause so could real loose guides, that can beat up a vavle job and have it wobble in its bore breaking a head off.
Seems its on the consumer nowadays to double ck everything even new stuff. Like you I seem to buy the 1 in 1000 pc that is defective every time lol.

aklim

I had a machine shop check everything in front of me. They disassemble the head and put it back together since I was getting heavier Springs and didn't trust the factory to get it right.

Geardo

Go with Lloyd Elliot, he can port your stock heads to out perform the Trick Flows, be his cam also.

smooth1990

Buy some AFR 195s and have your intake ported and get a 58mm throttle body. Also get some good headers and exhaust and a solid tune.

Jay7199

or let LLoyd Elliot port some Trickflow 21* heads and match a cam. would be beast!

tombrammer

I put the trick flows and a GM hot cam after a complete rebuild on my 93 LT1 and had a miss from the start. I did a leak down test and on cyl had a 30% leak down, two others were way below normal for a new engine. I pulled the heads and poured alcohol in the ports and 3 valves leaked terrible. I had to take my new heads to the machine shop and have a valve job done on them. Also the spark plug hole takes a plug with a compression ring unlike the stock tapered plug seat. I didn't realize that and stripped our a plug thread in the head before I realized what was happening. Otherwise I think they are pretty good heads, the whole kit perked up my engine a bunch, but you just need to be careful with thte heads and have a pro check them out before mounting them up. I think if I have it to do over I would go with AFR, more money for sure but a much better head all around. Good luck with your build, you will really enjoy the extra hp which ever way you go.

ggallred1983

I was planning on 3.54 rear gears, and now I'm also looking at upgraded brakes with slotted rotors! who seems to do the best break upgrades, does anybody know?

aklim

What does the engine tuner say that you should use? He is writing the tune and should be the one recommending.

Wheel Stander

As for computer tuning, you might want to contact Ed Wright. He will require you to provide him with all the pertinent specs of your engine and planned installs, but he is one of the best in the business. He really helped get my car running good considering my modifications are quite modest. You can contact him at http://www.fastchip.com/