I have an 84 Corvette stock Crossfire Injection. It was pumping "white smoke" out the exhaust... My first thought was blown head gasket?


Upon inspection and disassembly it turns out I have TWO CRACKED CYLINDER HEADS!!


So my question may be obvious, can I just use ANY "Non Vortec" Small Block Heads? OR is there anything special about these cracked stock heads? (Sender locations, issues because of the crossfire setup, etc).


Also I know the car isn't desirable BUT should I be worried about any "numbers matching" stuff?


Thanks again for your help...


Steve

 

Tough break, that! Any pre-Vortec sbc heads with a perimeter valve cover bolt pattern (as opposed to center bolts) will work with your '84. Center bolt heads work fine too if you don't mind changing valve covers.

Aluminum heads from '86-on, casting # '113, are a popular swap for the 40lbs weight savings; common, cheap, and basically a direct swap. The chamber size drops from 76cc to 58cc, so with a stock .021" shim gasket your static compression will rise from ~9.1 to ~11.25. However, about a point of that will be "absorbed" by the higher heat dissipation properties of aluminum. You'll gain a little power...essentially the same as running 10.25:1 static with iron heads. Shouldn't cause any detonation issues with the mild stock cam, thanks to the wonders of dynamic compression, but just something to be aware of.

If you're after a bit more flow, as many Crossfire owners are, Vortec heads are in fact a pretty decent option, being thick on the ground, flowing better than any early C4 heads, and cheap...but you'd have to add a Vortec-style intake to the parts list, which means ditching the Xfire.

Or, you may take this as an opportunity to upgrade to some aftermarket heads - there's a zillion out there at every price point. Well-flowing heads are going to be at the very core of any performance build, so if you think you may lean that direction at some point in the future, now would be the "cheapest" time to do it!

Good thing is you've got options. It's a slippery slope to project car status, but it can be a helluva lot of fun! And if you're just looking to keep driving it, nothing wrong with a cheap reconditioned set of '113s.

 

great time to change cam and lifters too, as well as timing gear/chain

 

As long as the engine is apart....

Consider a Renegede intake manifold. All the new heads in the world wont make a difference if the intake does not flow enough to support.

The stock intake manifold is a choke monster.

 

He could get vortec heads & convert over to 2bbl. tbi. The wiring is the same except for 1 extra iac connector. I'd look for a decent mileage vortec long block, roller cam.

 

I wasn't aware the change-over was that easy--pretty cool

It may seriously be your best option budget-wise, along with getting a little bump in performance & reliability. Not too shabby! If you're not real worried about building big power later on, I'd go this route.

Keep in mind for shopping, going from two piece to one piece rear main will require a different flywheel.

 

These are some of the parts I used when I built my motor, you could do it far cheaper with a factory tbi unit and a performer type intake with a tbi adaptor. I used holley for the intake & tbi unit, edelbrock for the egr adaptor. Intake is good through 6500 rpms.

 

Lots you can do with that setup, i mainly decided to stay with the cfi setup due to the unique hood on the 84.

I decided its kinda neat...

I did headers, 80lb injectors from a 454, edlebrock heads, Renegade intake, mild cam, roller rockers, headers, and a 3in exhaust with flowmaster 40's.

Engine is running off of an eblflash ecm, it was a little bit of a learning curve, but i like that i did everything my self.

The car flys, i have a video of me not breaking the law, but the car is a wild good time now.

i had the throttle down maybe 40%
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I thought about posting some others, but i decided that would be a bad idea...

 

Yeah, you made yours run good!

 

I'm doing something similar, but upping the cubes to a 383, and a cam that is skewed a little more to the "wild" side. Different enough your tune probably wouldn't work perfect in mine, but no doubt better than the stock one...we may need to talk when I get closer to tuning time!

 

first question: do I need (want) heads with an exhaust gas crossover to feed an EGR system? most stock heads have this feature: only a few, but they are out there, aftermarket heads have this crossover.

Oh, and if you live in California, the answer is probably gonna be yes