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Rebuilt stock DBL hump heads vs aftermarket

9K views 36 replies 19 participants last post by  RTCat 
#1 ·
Restoring my '69 base Camaro that has seen little use in the last 30 years I've owned it. 327 bored 30 over. I plan on putting on an Edelbrock performer 600 carb and Performer EPS intake. I'll be putting the stock exhaust manifolds back on the car. (currently has headers I put on 30 years ago. I did not know the motor was bored until I recently took the heads off for the 1st time) I put on a new double roller timing chain my buddy had laying around.

I pulled the stock "double bump" heads off and took the local machine shop to get an estimate of what shape they are in and what cost to put in hardened seats. Machine shop says castings are fine, but things are wore out. They want ~$1375 to put in:

new screw in studs (replace the stock pressed in)
valve guides
new springs
new stainless valves
new hardened seats

I was assuming I'd be paying less money for the head work. So with some brief looking I see http://www.jegs.com/i/Edelbrock/350/60739/10002/-1?parentProductId=758343#moreDetails are roughly the same price.

So, I have a couple questions:

Is $1375 too much for the work described above?

What is a better head, my stock dbl humps rebuilt or new aluminum edelbrocks linked above? (pros/cons of each?)

I currently have two bent pushrods so I'd probably get a new set of push rods with my rebuilt heads (I see with the Edelbrocks I need a bit longer push rod with stock rockers, which are in my current heads)

The motor is not original to my car. It is however a 327 out of a '69 sedan.
 
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#3 ·
Well Dave sounds like a make work project to me. I can just hear that cash register in the machine shop going cha ching cha ching . First off I am now retired but I was an automotive machinist for 40 years. If you need al that work go buy yourself a set of Summit 152123 fuelly head replacements . They are good heads at half the price and they are new . I seriously doubt you need all that work . It is not a race motor. Do you need screw in studs nice to have but I doubt it for what you have , scratch that . Do you need all new valves , I doubt it maybe a couple but they can be ground and the stems polished if they are good to reuse. Doyou need all new valve springs yes you do RV 943X about 30 bucks good to .510 lift. Do you need all new seats absolutely not and the exh are probably fine . years ago we used to put new ones I but in all honesty I only saw about 3 cases of valve seat recession in all my years and we did boatloads of heads all kinds . The heads that were really bad had been overheated to kingdom come worked hard and poor maintenance . Here again I have not seen your heads but based on what I have seen this is my consensus. the other thing is this I would look for another shop he seems just a tad pricey for regular non race work . It ain,t a FERARI kid its a small block Chevy and I mean no disrespect to you or you car . RUN FORREST RUN and find another shop . Alex
 
#4 ·
I would put the Edelbrocks on in a Heatbeat, they are decent heads for the money.
You will also need new head bolts w/washers.
I have them on a 350 in my parts hauler truck with a Lunati retro-roller cam and have been happy with the perfromance.

With a roller cam and lifters I ended up with a shorter pushrod and different valve springs, but I believe you are correct in needing a longer with a flat tappet cam. I assume thats what you are running.

I like the Edelbrock 650 AVS carb over the 600.
 
#8 ·
1375 I would say is not worth the investment for those heads. Sell them like was suggested. That kind of money you could buy a very good aluminum head. Shop around. Stay away from the Chinese stuff. Yeah, they are tempting because of the price, but I would just purchase a well known head.
 
#9 ·
The double hump heads are not worth putting money into them and not worth much if you did ! I had a hard time getting $350 for mine with stainless valves and screw in studs etc. They only had about 3000 miles on them.

I really like my Edelbrock E-streets. They are a great head ! I wouldn't mess with the replacement double humps. The ports are just to small on those ! 165cc vs 185cc on the E-streets.

Edelbrock 5089 Cylinder Head, E-Street Sold as a Pair on E-bay $970.49 with Free shipping
 
#10 ·
I guess it depends how orignal you want your car to be. Are they date coded to your car? If you want a hot rod then make a hot rod, if you want a stock appearance then keep them. IT IS A LOT of money however. I bought some 68 camel humps like 2 years ago for a buddy that were original castings (non ported) and fully rebuilt for $600. He still has them today and they work great.
 
#11 ·
New aluminum heads will need to be checked cause they are not perfect. You will have leaks in the seats among other places. Google it. I had my 70 Z28 heads done along with my engine rebuild and had hardened valve seats installed on the E valves. My prior engine rebuild was in '85 which I put on 50,779 mi with no valve recession. I did use a lead additive once in a while but not much plus Shell gas back in the 80's and early 90's had a lead substitute in it that I also used. If you want the engine to look stock as I did then go with the orig heads. Some of today's aluminum heads are JUNK. Do your research first.
 
#12 ·
One other point to make here. I'm not sure original is what you are after, having said that you could always paint the aluminum head Chevy Orange like I did. They look great in Chevy Orange LOL.
 
#14 ·
You won't be disappointed with aftermarket heads.

But..... find someone else to look over the heads and give you an estimate for work you actually need. Why does he want to replace the rocker studs with screw ins? You don't need screw in studs with a stock type cam. Maybe I missed it, but are you installing a high lift roller that will require more spring pressure?

Why do the springs need replaced? They rarely wear out.

Get another opinion. Then you will know what you are dealing with.
 
#15 ·
Thanks for all the input so far everyone. It is greatly appreciated. Tomorrow morning I'm going to find out more details from the place where the heads are currently as to the reason behind their estimate

I have lead on another local place to take the heads to for another opinion/estimate.

I'll keep you all posted.
 
#16 ·
I'm with Vegas and cstraub : I would get bare castings and have quality springs and valves installed.

That will cost ~ $1000. And I like any head that has the vortec raised port design and uses a vortec intake.

I would try to find an intake port volume close to 170. That's all a 327 will ever need on the street and should give improved gas mileage and a big improvement in torque.
 
#17 ·
You will never get the old heads to flow as much or as well as the aluminum heads that $1300 could buy.
These old heads are best left to the numbers-matching crowd or for the racers who still run a car restricted to factory heads.
I saved double humpers for years with good intentions until I came to the same realizations.
 
#19 ·
Some double humps- my 462's for example, are as small as 155cc intake runners. Agree with above, target 170cc for a street 327. Watch out for the chamber size though. The double humps are on the order of 64-66cc. Larger will lower your compression ratio. Also, calculate your quench and make sure to buy the optimal head gasket.
 
#22 ·
If the engine still has the stock lo-po flat top pistons w/ valve reliefs, you really don't want those edelbrock heads you linked to w/ the 70cc chambers as they will drop the compression down below 9:1. The 64cc jobs would put you around 9.2 or so and are a better choice.

Depending on what pistons you have, you might be able to get away with even smaller chambers (some rebuilder pistons are pretty far down in the hole, which drops compression).

If it was my $, I'd definitely be looking into aftermarket, probably something with around 62cc chambers with ~170cc runners. If you're planning a new intake anyway, then Vortec is worth looking into (althrough you'd likely need self-aligning rocker arms to go with them)...

Stock manifolds probably mean the raised D-port exhaust ports wouldn't work well. Not sure how angle plugs play with stock manifolds either (?).

Scoggin Dickey has packaged vortec upgrade kits that I've read nice things about:
https://sdparts.com/details/scoggin-dickey-parts-center/sd8060aag
https://sdparts.com/details/scoggin-dickey-parts-center/sd8060arpm
 
#23 ·
Based on feedback from here and some of my motor-head buddy's, I'm leaning toward aftermarket aluminum heads.

Details I got from the machine shop are that the everything was wore out. Heads are from 1967, so who knows what their life was before they got put on my '69 327.

I'm looking at the Edelbrock power package top end kit #2022 (minus the timing chain as I have a brand new one on the shelf)

These would be the heads #5089 specs from an online site

E-Street Cylinder Heads
1986 & Earlier Small Block Chevy
185cc Intake Ports
64cc Combustion Chambers
2.02"/1.60" Valves
1.46" Valve Springs
Max Lift: .550" Hydra Flat Tappet
3/8" Rocker Stud
Straight Plug
Assembled

http://www.jegs.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/KeywordSearchCmd?storeId=10001&catalogId=10002&langId=-1&N=0&Ntk=all&Nty=1&Ntx=modeBmatchall&Dx=modeBmatchall&Ntt=350-5089&D=350-5089

here's the cam

http://www.jegs.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/KeywordSearchCmd?storeId=10001&catalogId=10002&langId=-1&N=0&Ntk=all&Nty=1&Ntx=modeBmatchall&Dx=modeBmatchall&Ntt=350-2102&D=350-2102

Performer-Plus Camshaft Kit
1957-86 Chevy 265-400
.420''/.442'' Lift
278°/288° Adv. Duration
Idle-5500 RPM Range

I'll be putting a performer 600 ele choke carb on top of the Performer EPS intake.
 
#24 ·
David,

I would encourage you to consider the 170 cc E-tec cylinder heads over the E-streets.

Look at this page listing Edelbrock's crate engines : http://www.edelbrock.com/automotive/mc/crate-engines/chevy-sb-main.shtml

The E-streets are used on the lower horsepower engines. The E-tecs (with an 8% smaller port) are used on the higher horse engines starting at 435 HP.

The vortec port is the way to go for a street SBC IMHO.

But these do cost a little more. But will give better mileage and HP.
 
#27 ·
I have vortec heads on my 327, the 170 cc runner is perfect. I have 9.6CR, solid lifter cam, runs very strong.
 
#29 ·
If you don't mind a center bolt valve cover a set of stock vortecs with rockers, vortec RPM intake, puch rods, lifters and GM blue print 151 cam is a killer combination. It's what I have and my 327 runs extremely well.

You can do the entire combo fairly cheap for about a grand if you shop. I am by no means discounting the E streets, they are pretty much just an aluminum version of the votec design that will use a perimeter hold bolt down valve cover which is actually a big bonus. I am just tossing out another option and a combo I know works very well on a 327.

My 327 has flat top forged .030 over pistons, steel crank, polished rods, brass bushed on the small end and floated to the piston instead of a press fit. It was balanced and at 180K on the build I pulled it apart.

Power honed it, new cast rings.....yes she is a little loose. Polished the crank and sized the rods. brass bushings were in perfect condition. New cam, rod and main bearings. It's at this point when I installed the vortec combo with the 151 cam and holy crap!!!

It pulls really hard and if allowed will burn rubber with my 700r4 into trough 3rd gear. I have run a best at the track at just over a 13:30 but I was punishing it pretty good with shifts at 6500......with stock valve train. I then promptly replaced all the push rods because they were galled all the rockers were galled at the push rod hole, one was splitting at the rocker ball. I also replaced all the springs.

Never going back to the track because that is just to expensive...:yes: Moral of the story is what ever you do your 327 is going to run very well if you get the correct combo. Mine is a nasty little sucker for sure!!!

You can hear it here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqHZDrbm_ng

https://youtu.be/ZqHZDrbm_ng
 
#32 ·
I had the same choice 3 years ago after breaking a rocker stud and blowing a head gasket. My machinist asked all the questions posed here. In the end I rally didn't need the extra HP from vortec heads. I wasn't flipping the car so I had all the good American valves, springs, push rods, roller tipped rockers. New guides (whoever did the last valve job over drilled the guides leading to the failure in the first place) The shop did all the work even dipping and repainting my headers. cleaned up some messy wiring tuned her up even. Out the door for 1800 cash ! And 3 years later I can say it was the right choice for me.
 
#33 ·
Make sure they pressure check your heads after doing the valve work and if they are adding hard seats. THey must be pressure tested prior to the new seats going in to ensure they did not hit water. The heads rot from the inside out.
 
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