I recently pulled the engine out of my 88 tpi and I am looking for some advice on rebuilding it. Let me start off by say I am unemployed and I am on an extremely tight budget. I am looking to shave cost wherever possible so when you form your response, please respond with " if I had to cost I would.." I fully understand that newer in most cases is the safest route. I am a 50/50 auto-xer, sunday street driver so I am concerned with horsepower. Before the rebuild started, I lightly ported my tpi system. I may end switching to a stealth ram, siamesed slp's, siamesed base or carbed setup in the future when more funds are available.

I can take pictures and post them if that would make things easier. With all that said:


The motor had 130,000 miles on it. One of the heads got warped and sprung a leak. It also got beaten up pretty badly. )




On the subject of heads:

Would you put money into my stock 113 heads to have them rebuilt? (3 machine shops said they would be fine and are saveable quoted at 150-300 depending on how much I get done to them)

OR WOULD YOU OPT FOR

My friend has a set of 194 valve iron heads off a 400 small block that are pretty fresh (5000 miles) that He would give me for 150 dollars? (because he's desperate for money)

I don't like the idea of adding weight to the car or that the intake runners on the iron heads are so small. I would almost have to gasket match the intake runners to get them up to a full felpro 1204 port size. I've been told the iron heads will make a touch over 300hp the way they sit. With a little bit of pocket porting and opening up the intake runners, how much hp could I get from them?

I would love to run the aluminum heads and have a little pocket porting done on them because I know that would land me in a desirable horse power range. However, I am a little leary of sinking money into them after a few members have told me they are "boat anchors"


On the Subject of cam, lifters, and tune:

Intially thought that going brand new here was the only option but I am now looking at cutting cost here if possible

1. Brand new roller cam and lifters with a mail order tune

2. reuse my lifters and or cam

3. a reground cam with new or used lifters

4. Flat tappet cam and lifters ( I was under the impression that I can do that with the roller block)

As far as tuning goes, I was wondering if I could stay with cam close to the stock specs but with a touch more lift yet it would still run on the stock tune? What is the limit on when a tune is need and when it's marginal? I would like to cam up a bit (LT4 hotcam ish)incase I do swap a manifold to something a little more top end but I realize that would surely require a tune there.

Rotating assembly and block

I plan on only going .030 over and stroker crank is basically out of the question unless I could save on something above. (I was told I could have the crank turned and the rods resized for 150. 150 to hot tank and bore the block. 35 put the pistons and rods together.)

I am thinking of just using a basic 300-450 dollar engine rebuild kit with either cast of Hyper pistons unless I could save in somewhere else in which case I would consider going to a forged piston.


I know its a long post, but thoughtful respones will be greatly apreaciated

 

That head is junk IMO,look for a new set of heads,400 sm blk heads are junk also.Find another 113 or go with a head with atleast 64cc chambers,your 113's are 58 cc,putting 76cc 400 heads on it will lower your compression quite a bit.Go with a roller cam , small comp xfi or what you can afford,shop around you can find a used roller cam if you have to.also your 88 intake and valve covers will not work with early heads I think?,best to find another 113 too replace the damaged one.

 

well another option for you since your valves appear ok maybe buy some bare 113 castings or some cast iron L-98 "083" heads maybe.

 

Find another set of 113 heads or have yours fixed. The 400 heads are junk and will lower the performance of your car (large open chamber 76 CC head, with poor flow potential). If you want to use the stock tune you could use the GM ZZ-4 cam, it will perform well and work with the stock tune, but you will need new valve springs and possibly some valve guide work to handle the lift. The 355 engine combination will work well, try and get 10.5 to 1 compression (flat top piston), to maximize the combination.

 

I figured I could get away with running the zz4 cam on the stock, Im to hear you confrim that. But is that about as far as I can go with the tock tune. Im not 100% against the cost of a re tune, I would just like to put it down the line a little bit.

 

Would you beable to spend 220-250 bucks on all the tuning equipment needed to tune your car? Do you have a laptop? If not then just use the desktop and skip the datalogging part but you kinda want to have datalogging to see whats goin on.

LT4 hotcam is capable of running on a stock tune but its alittle rough. Quick mail order could be the ticket but thats 200 bucks or so as well. Lt4 hotcam is nice since you can find them often for cheap.

ZZ4 is nice for stock heads and stock tune but power potential out of it is much less than the hotcam.

Rebuild the 113 heads is a good choice IF those heads can be rebuilt/cleaned up and are not warped too bad

 

Don't have a laptop at the moment but could possibly borrow one. I would love to eventually do my own tuning.

I mention both of those cams because they are both really easy to get for cheap

 

If money is the sole driver in this, have your heads cleaned up/repaired. Get a warranty on the work cause IMHO they are close to junk. Do a pocket porting and blend the bowls for much improved flow. Cheap hot cam and your lifters. New bearings, I assume the bottom end if in good shape, both mains and rods. If it were mine I would go to cast rings and cylinders cleaned up with a bottle brush hone. All this will give you some more power at a reasonable cost, I SWAG $500.00-$600.00. Will not be as stout as a blueprinted engine but will stand up to some hard runs. Your current PROM will perform very well until you can get a custom tune.

 

I would not surface those 113 heads more than .012". There is a book by David Vizard that shows you how to modify the chambers and pocket port them yourself.
It's called "How to build Chevy small blocks on a budget" now do I have your attention?
It is an SA book with a stock number of SA57.
it's an old book, written about 10 years ago, but your Barnes and Noble bookstore can order it for you. They outline a few heads that would be good aternatives as well as build 10 engines on a budget, although the budget of today doesn't look anything like the budget 10 years ago, and neither does the engine of yesterday, except power is power. I would guess the buildups would still be viable today.

In addition, I seem to have a set of 041 heads for sale, 2.02 intakes, 1.6 exhausts, screw in studs, guide plates, the bronze exhaust guides are new, hardened exhaust seats machined into the heads, the guides are machined for the new style valve seals, the springs are reused, but the engine was last revved up to 5500 a lot prior to my new engine going into the 'ol 57.
I think the exhaust valves were given a valve job and new guides because the machine shop would not cut the exhaust seats with unknown guides since their cutting tool uses the exhaust guides, and I wanted hardened exhaust seats..
The intakes were ground when the heads were originally gone through, and just lapped this time....These heads are 1970 350--360 horse z28 heads with accessory bolt holes.
asking $300 for these iron beauties. oh....they are 64cc

 

PM sent

 

Maybe if I take the heads apart, the actual damage could be determined better? The would be getting new springs and seals anyway

 

Take em apart...those can easilybe welded/fixed but it will cost a few hundred...same with some port work. Skip the 400 heads. tell your friend

Get them magnafluxed first though.

 

Why is the zz4 cam regarded by so many on this forum as not much of an upgrade over stock? Too me, the cam seems much, much better than stock. People crow about the 1.6rr gains, seems like the zz4 would return just as much, if not more.

 

ZZ4 is pretty strong, but look at the ZZ4 crate motor. Its advertised at 355hp and features same heads as L98 vette motor, and similar compression. Just has a carbed manifold. Most ZZ4's however only make 340-345 hp crank and depending on how many accessories you run, its even less. your looking at 325-335 or so with L98 accessories.

Strap TPI on there and its down in the mid high 200s

Take an L98 vette motor and put on same carb manifold and it will be pretty close to that ZZ4, maybe down 15hp overall. Looking at 310-320 or so hp with L98 with ZZ4 intake on top.

ZZ4 cam swap should be good for 15hp or so which aint bad, but thats not a huge gain for the effort. Plus you'd probly only see that once its finally tuned. I've seen few thirdgen fbody L98's with ZZ4 cams and similar/same intake manifold as my HSR make less power than my stock L98 camm'd with 1.6 rockers HSR L98. So it depends on the tune if your gonna see alot more power or not.

ZZ4 with 1.6's will help a little but the L98 aluminum head doesnt flow too much beyond .500 without minor cleanup of the port. 1.5's work well with ZZ4 on stock heads.

Do alittle bowl/port work and pick up flow to .550, you'll do well with 1.6 rockers on the ZZ4

 

One obvious answer is rockers are easier to install (and can cost less) than a cam for the power gained. The ZZ4 cam is also milder (and similar) to the ZZ9 cam. So, why not pick the ZZ9 and get 4 more degrees -- if that's the range you're looking in? Also, either cam has a ramp rate that is slower than newer designs -- which can leave hp on the table. Then, there's the issue of split.

With ported/good flowing heads, you wouldn't need that much split -- but if you're using stock manifolds, it might not hurt. Consider that GM only put 6 degrees of split in your stock cam vs 13 being in the ZZ4 cam. For the extra split (exh duration) to help alot, you better have good manifold/exhaust. That's the only way I can see it creating xtra power. Maybe GMPP considered most ZZ4's would be doing this and want to retain good emissions!

For porting, the 113 heads can be ported and setup to flow over .500 lift. As an example, LE's work goes up to .600+. That means you can use higher lift, more aggressive ramps to get more power out of your motor. I like the 113 heads because of their weight (vs iron) and what they can flow in the right person's hands. I've seen amateur porters get great results out of 113's and pro's doing even better. One member got his '89 into low 13's with just pocket porting and a LT intake.

Another member is running TPIS ported 113's with a large-tube intake, headers, and a hotcam. (He also started over with an $1100 GMPP 350 short block.) More importantly, he's using a stock tune and auto-xing. His position is too many people don't give credit for how much a stock tune can provide. He's frequently testing/looking at oil for signs of problems and not seeing it. I can't fault his statment consider his power is very good...320rwhp IIRC. Depending on the extent of your efforts, you may not NEED to tune -- though it will never hurt. But, this is one place where you might be able to scrimp -- at least for awhile. FWIW, I think picking the correct injector size/FP is key to "getting away" with a stock tune.



gp

 

Those heads are NOT junk! To someone with an unlimited budget, they might be considered so, but if the machine shop checks them out and find no cracks or such, they are completely reusable, and when finished will be better than most any set of iron heads you could put on it. Given that you auto cross, iron heads would be a bad choice.

A little port clean up and attention and they will work great for a budget engine.

What beat up the head on that cylinder anyway?

 

I took them to the machine shop after they had been taken apart and they looked great underneathe. 10-15 thou will have to be taken offto make them functional again.

I machinest talked my into junking the intake valves for 2.00 inch valves. he showed me what to do the bowls to make them flow better.


My question to everyone one is, How much more hp with the heads flow just based on the intake valve upgrade? AND How much will they flow after a decent pocket port and gasket match?

I am very excited to be able to reuse this exquipment

 

The zz4 cam came into question in the first place for 2 reasons:

1. If I stay it will run on the stock tune

2. PRICE- can be aquired for super cheap.

However, Now I considering reground cams.... Anyone have a good source?

 

3 sources (including 2 porters) told me 2" valves were (only) worth an extra 10hp. Based on what a couple of forum members got with pocket porting (113's), you could be anywhere from 200-220cfm. 220cfm is a realistic goal -- esp with bigger valves.

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If you don't want to take the cam out again (if/when you swap intakes down the road), hotcams are pretty cheap too. $200ish all the time.

gp

 

Dont do the intake valve upgrade without doing the exhaust, chances are youll lose power. BTDT.