Those of us who don’t live overseas or in another members US town or city have no way of knowing what another member has access to.
All I did was suggest to the OP based on the money I wasted buying my heads complete from the manufacturer.
Because I do things right, I had my new heads checked before they were installed.
Good thing I did because the builder found a casting issue on one head and it needed to be replaced by Edelbrock.
If the head was installed without checking it, it would have caused problems down the road.
During cam installation the builder noticed the springs that came in the heads were rated at higher pressure than my camshaft manufacturer recommended.
The heads had to be disassembled the second time and had to be machined for the new springs.
So I wasted money buying complete heads, had to pay labor costs for them to be disassembled twice, machined and then reassembled twice.
I was only trying to make a recommendation to the OP which might save him money and the frustration I went through.
I think from this day forward I will refrain from doing anything to help out another forum member.

 

No!
Speak up!
All opinions are welcome!
Pro & Con.
There is no one correct answer.
And sometimes discussion, even disagreement, brings up a better solution.

 

I want to be clear that I really appreciate every members' reply.
It's no problem man

Thank you for the advice. I think I have found a shop in The Netherlands that have the Edelbrock heads in stock.
I will check tomorrow if It's possible to inspect the heads when I'm there.

 

I guess the question you need to ask yourself is what if the flat tappet cam break-in fails? Or fails shortly after install? What would you be out then? Also do you want to be stuck with high zinc oil or run any oil of your choosing?
Sure flat tappet cams USED to be common. Not now.
How many miles do you envision putting on this engine?
This guy lost a lobe, original to the car, at 49,000. So even back in the day it was not an uncommon occurrence.
https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...974-454-a.html

I went roller and have never looked back. Sure it was more expensive. Judging by what you've done so far, is that an obstacle?

You have a relatively high mileage engine. Not sure JUST a camshaft is all it needs.

 

Old Car Bum,
Your thoughts & ideas are wonderful for us "state-side" people with access to unlimited resources.

But UPS guys really hate driving back & forth to Belgium. LOL

 

Okay, GOOD news!
My brother will go on a vacation to the States for a couple of weeks in Autumn (Okt. - Nov.).

He can't put the alum. heads in regular size (and number) of luggage, but I'm sure he can put bolts, studs, gaskets and a camshaft (and maybe a new alu. water pump) in there.

I will try to get the heads first, then do some checks and measuring, and after that make a list of parts that he can order.

Will let you all know! 😃

 

There you go.

 

Does Summit Racing ship overseas?

 

If I was the OP, I'd be saving some more cash and go with the roller option. It's so hit and miss with the flat tappet cams today, you will most likely be changing it out down the road with another cam and you'll be so pissed that "you'll put a roller in it this time so it doesn't happen again" mindset.
Spend the money now to avoid the aggravation later. As another plus, You'll get more torque with the roller due to better cylinder filling because the valves open quicker and stay closer to max lift longer.
You won't regret it

 

I'm beginning to hesitate again 🤔...
Especially now I know of my brothers' trip to the US.

Maybe the roller option isn't that expensive (for the peace of mind)? I really am hesitant now.

​​​​​​I searched on the Edelbrock site and it says that the springs (that are already assembled in the E-street head) will have to be changed to #5845 springs if going for rollers.
Can I replace the springs myself?

 

Yes but the expensive thing would be tax and import costs.

 

Yes, if you have a spring compressor, it can be done on the workbench.

I disagree about numerous Flat Tappets going south. I think it has become more & more rare.
As the public gets more educated about what NOT to do at break-in time, I am seeing / hearing less & less flat tappet failures.

Five yrs ago it was bad. Eight yrs ago it was really bad. But now with information about Zinc, valve-springs, RPMs, moly paste applied failed lifters seems to be a thing of the past.

All cam companies say that 99% of failures are "user / installer error". Because we men don't like to read instructions and the booklet with every cam purchased gets tossed aside.
We Don't Need No Stinkin' Instructions! Zinc? What's that? Vary the idle speed? Why?
Then we wonder why a lifter went south.
Every time someone thinks they wiped a cam lobe on this forum, I ask them what oil they were using. They never answer back.

So anyway, basically going roller is about $800 more than F.T. It's your car, your money, your call.
If I kept having issues with Flat Tappets, I would definitely look at roller. But I no longer see the expense just for street crusin'.

 

So just my experience on this with my 355 but I ran a lunati vodoo 262/268 flat tappet cam with dart 64c/180 iron eagle heads. It worked great but I always wondered about something slightly larger so after about 10 years i swapped to a retro roller cam and I went with a comp 270hr cam. I bought engintech retro roller lifters from rock auto after googling and reading up on other forums where I could not find one report anywhere of a failure.
I used a nylon cam button and the steel distributor gear was good for use with my cam but I used a composite fuel pushrod. Because I already had roller rockers ad the correct springs I only paid about $500 to do the swap 3 years ago.

Then 2 years ago I swapped the 180cc dart heads with the 190 aluminum heads I mentioned above which I ported quite extensively so they are likely closer to 205-210 sized runners now and despite all the advice from the experts here to stay with a smaller runner I saw nothing but power improvements on my street engine which is mainly built for torque. I did have to rejet a bit fatter also. I did this after seeing 2 episodes of engine masters where they more or less disproved that larger runners killed torque on smaller displacement engines as exaggerated within reason.
To be fair I also had plans to either use these heads on a 383 or as it turs out now, the 406 im assembling for the car now. So while I wont say not to stick with 180cc runners, I dont think you would be giving up anything by going with say a set of the afr enforcers which are advertised as 195s as many who have already used these heads as well as the higher end 195 AFR heads ca tell you they perform very well on a 350 as long as they are paired with the right combo meaning cam and compression ratio as well as good flowing exhaust.

Its too bad you werent closer, I have a brand new never ran comp 270hr cam im looking to sell along with possibly the edelbrock 170 etec heads and the matching elelbrock vortec intake that came on the newly rebuild 406 I bought as it was originally build to be a truck engine.

Ive been to Belgium as my employer is based out there and I found the trip to be a real eye opener, I really liked it there and I loved how older people stayed so active compared to the states.

Oh btw my 355 has hyper flat top 4 relief pistons so 10.1:1 compression. I run 89 or better octane. The original l48 I bought the car with had the original flat tappet cam and came with a couple wiped lobes even at 98,000 miles because the kid that owned it did not know to use the right type of oil. YMMV

 

<your brother is coming stateside>
Now there is an out-of-the-box solution!

OK
Compression is your friend for HP & bigger cams.
I believe a 77 was 8.5 CR. And in reality it is usually 0.5 pt lower than that, so figure 8.0.
9.7-10.3 is a great target for a medium performance street cam.
I think you can get part way there by keeping the dished pistons and shirt block intact, but choosing heads with much smaller combustion chambers.
Jebby hasn't spoken up on this thread yet, but IIRC he likes the Trick Flow heads the best for this. They have the smallest chamber size.
56cc for the Trick Flow vs 64cc for the E-street. You want all you can get.
https://www.summitracing.com/parts/t...w_wcB#overview
Not sure what that will get your CR up to, somebody here may know.
Say low 9s. Mid 9s tops.
To get more than that you need taller pistons.
That is still a decent step up from the ~8.0 you have now.
And they FLOW much better, which is real key for HP.
But I would sill stay with shorter duration cams to help build cylinder pressure.
Say ~212 dur or so as recommended. Still a decent step up from the ~195 that came stock.
(A ~224 would not do really well with that CR, it would like more. And the Q-Jet may not like the lower vacuum.)
So that is kind of your best performance limit with those pistons.

Going to a HR cam might run you a little more, as mentioned, but one big advantage it has over a H flat is at the same ~212 dur the advertised duration will be shorter, because it has faster ramps, and that change builds more low rpm TQ that you want and can really feel.
That way it will run almost as good as if it had 10:1 CR.
I'm just guessing say 50-60HP more than you have now? Near 320-330HP? (gross)
Very noticeable!

Decide if you want to go the HR route or not, and many of us can give you some good suggestions.
(The flat and the HR cams might vary by +/- 20?)

 

THe issues with flat tappet cams are the people that are installing them not breaking them in correctly then using the proper oil to keep them going.....now if we were talking Clevite-Mahle bearings then yould be correct, those are factory junk

 

Wait, are you throwing a tantrum?

 

Aren't you going to pay taxes one way or another if you get parts from the US?

 

Many of the recent videos Ive seen on the flat tappet failures are from shops that now refuse to even bother with them anymore. There was a good video that implied it was in fact the lifters that are the weakpoint these days since basically all but one manufacturer of flat tappet lifters for our engines are making them overseas and they are just being rebranded by most of the name brands out there. I didnt want to risk breaking in another and its nice to not have to add additives but if I wasnt changing to a bigger cam I would have left mine alone as it was fine and broke in correctly for me.

Btw you should be able to bring them back to Belgium in checked baggage. Each head separately. I brought back about 50lbs of Belgian beer to the states myself.

 

Thats amazing and I would blame the sops that are installing them then... I have put in on average one cam a year for the last 8 years and havent had a cam issue with the flat tappet cams. did have a Comp Roller lifter explode and destroy my lovable little 327. The roller end cam off and spread needles everywhere as well as eating the cam and sending all that into my oil system. Defiinitely Mahle Clevite bearing issues, Carter garbage fuel pump issues, Headlight, wiper ignition switch issues and the ever popular vacuum relay issues.

 

I did an estimate on the Summit website... Is my feeling wrong or is shipping to Belgium a little 'over the top' ?

- Edelbrock 5089 (64cc, pair) TOTAL = € 1601,00 (+ 1 year warranty from the shop in The Netherlands)
- Trick flow Super 23 TFS-30310001 (56cc, pair) TOTAL = 2103,60 (Summit Warranty on heads???)