Performance Heads

Reply Subscribe

Thread Tools

Search this Thread

Sep 10, 2005 | 08:36 AM

Legion21

Thread Starter

Advanced

Joined: Jun 2005

Posts: 57

Likes: 0

From: Cape Coral Florida

Performance Heads

Alright, I'm getting together a plan to do a Head/Cam swap for my 96 LT1. Who makes performance Heads for the LT1, here is a list of the currnet companies I know of.

AFR
Edelbrock
Trickflow
GMPP
Lloyd Elliot
Advanced Induction

I'm not loooking for a debate on who's the best, just other manufacturers/machinists that I may not know about, and I will do my own investigating into each of them.

Thanks, Greg

Sep 10, 2005 | 11:05 AM

tjwong

Le Mans Master

Joined: Jan 2003

Posts: 8,596

Likes: 19

From: Portland Oregon

Quote:

Originally Posted by Legion21

AFR makes great heads.....but they are about 4 months wait to get them. Edelbrock are OK at best their runner sizes are rather anemic. If you are bolting them onto a stock engine with a very mild cam, they will work better than stock.

GMPP only offers LT4 replacement heads which are good for a mild build up. Trick Flow makes a very good LT1 head. But the problem is that their combustion chamber size is 62cc which would drop your static compression ratio down a point, this isn't great for performance. However if you are building a 383 or a hot 350 then this is the way to go. You can get these heads bare and have one of the above porting services port them to 200cc or more. These heads will flow as well as any LT1 AFR head with porting.

Lloyd Elliot and AI are good head porters. Another is TEA or Total Engine Airflow, CNC Heads is another example of a great porting service.

At this time my advice would be to have one of the porting services above to port either your stock castings of a set of new LT4 castings. With the later LT4 heads you would need to replace the intake manifold as well. Lloyd does excellent work, I have had personal experience with his work so I can vouch for it, and his prices are very reasonable. The others are excellent as well.

Sep 10, 2005 | 11:30 AM

bacardioil

Pro

Joined: Nov 2004

Posts: 637

Likes: 0

From: Perth Amboy N.J.

talk to ( harold ) at port pros. in tx. this man will give you a set of heads you will not believe. tell him gene told you to call him. you wont be sorry.

Last edited by bacardioil; Sep 10, 2005 at 11:57 AM.

Sep 10, 2005 | 12:45 PM

STL94LT1

Race Director

Joined: Jan 2002

Posts: 12,263

Likes: 86

From: O'Fallon Missouri

Pete at CNC Cylinder heads did a great job on my heads/cam combination.

Sep 10, 2005 | 12:47 PM

hippy

Le Mans Master

Joined: May 2000

Posts: 7,033

Likes: 12

Quote:

Originally Posted by tjwong

GMPP only offers LT4 replacement heads which are good for a mild build up. Trick Flow makes a very good LT1 head. But the problem is that their combustion chamber size is 62cc which would drop your static compression ratio down a point, this isn't great for performance.

Not sure if this is relevant for LT motors but I went with Tricks on my L98 and used the 1094 head gasket/shim. This gasket is only .015" compared to .039/.041 for a std head gasket. I guessed that the volume for the .015 to be in the neighborhood of 3.2cc vs 9cc for a .041. So with a 62+3.2cc=65.2cc vs 58+9=67cc for a L98 set up I figure that you can get away with the larger head chamber.

P.S. Trickflows are junk.

Last edited by hippy; Sep 10, 2005 at 02:58 PM.

Sep 10, 2005 | 08:27 PM

Performance nut

Le Mans Master

Joined: Jun 2005

Posts: 5,037

Likes: 520

From: Texas

Quote:

Originally Posted by hippy

P.S. Trickflows are junk.

oh, we arent going to start that again are we?

Sep 10, 2005 | 10:04 PM

MYCoupe

Melting Slicks

Joined: May 2003

Posts: 3,490

Likes: 68

From: Hewitt NJ

Quote:

Originally Posted by tjwong

...At this time my advice would be to have one of the porting services above to port either your stock castings of a set of new LT4 castings. With the later LT4 heads you would need to replace the intake manifold as well. Lloyd does excellent work, I have had personal experience with his work so I can vouch for it, and his prices are very reasonable. The others are excellent as well.

This is the best bang for the buck. You should be able to get your heads ported with a matching camshaft for well under $2k. I'm going to have Lloyd Elliott port my heads in the spring. I've heard nothing but good comments about him and he's answered all my questions right away.