350 head suggestions.

i recently purchased a 86 c10 with a new 350 motor. runs amazing as is but i purchased to make into a little hot rod. i am curious about which heads to put on for a decent price or if some mods will make mine do what i am looking for. i now have double hump heads, no modifications. what i would like out of this truck is a little chop to the idle and more power. i will be adding a cam intake and torque converter also. i have a edelbrock 650 cfm carb now. looking for a possible 500 -520 lift. any ideas on what i should do. i am also on a budget, wanna do it righ but would likle to keep it cheap if possible.

Cheap and good don't usually fit in the same sentence. :) I've become a fan of aluminum heads..........dollar for dollar I think they make sense. By the time you do a proper valve job and prep job on steel heads you are almost at the cost of a set of something like Edelbrock Performer RPM heads. Some of our engine experts may have different opinions, so we will see what options they have for you.

Don

im leaning towards vortec heads off of newer chevrolet. i have been hearing lots of good stuff about them. seems as though i can get a set for around 400 bucks. is there anything i need to look for before purchasing a set. they say i can get 50 hp just by installing those heads. i really wanna get some lift though. i know the cam is the heart of the engine and i wanna beef this thing up. i dont want the normal ol c10

Can't put late model heads on 86 engine :CRY: I would take the double hump heads in and have a valve job and have them releaved for the cam you want to run.

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Originally Posted by cffisher

Can't put late model heads on 86 engine :CRY: I would take the double hump heads in and have a valve job and have them releaved for the cam you want to run.

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I don't understand your answer Charlie. He's talking L31 heads, which are Gen I and will bolt right on, although they will require a Vortec-specific intake manifold.

Unkl, everyone talks up the L31 heads, but there is more to them than the average guy will usually tell you. It is true that they are the best iron production heads that Chevrolet Division ever cast up, but they have some downsides.
1. Pressed-in rocker studs will begin pulling out of the heads at spring pressures above about 250 ~.
2. Rail rockers are not recommended with lifts over about 0.500", so you have to pull the studs and tap for screw-ins and use conventional rockers.
3. The guides are large outside diameter, so there is no room to use a stock diameter spring (1.250") with a damper. You have to just run a single spring with no damper and you won't be able to use much cam if you can't get some spring in the heads. If you want to cut the O.D. of the valve guide for more spring and PC seals, you can do that. You would cut the seats at the same time for a larger diameter spring if you were going to use lift over 0.500".
4. In stock configuration, the valve lift is limited to 0.430" (you will hear everybody and his brother tell you that you can run 0.500" lift with the stock arrangement. All I know is that Chevrolet says 0.430") before the bottom of the retainer smashes into the top of the valve guide seal, so if you cut the O.D. of the guide for more spring and a PC seal, you also want to drop the seal down a little on the guide.
5. If you install screw-in studs for conventional rockers, you also have to cut the pads and install guide plates. You can use the rail rockers without guide plates, but if you use conventional rockers, you must use guide plates.

So you see, they are not the little sweethearts that most would have you believe. They need a lot of work to come up to other cast iron heads that you can just take out of the box and bolt on. In my opinion, here is the best head out there for a street-driven 350....
http://www.summitracing.com/parts/RHS-12410-01/

I agree with Don about aluminum heads. I would save your money for a set of Patriot heads which are some of the best priced of the aluminum heads out there. They don't flow like the high dollar heads (AFR, Profiler, etc), but for your application, you would notice a big improvement in performance and you would not be using 35 year old technology. You could easily have half the price in a rebuild of your double humps.

www.summitracing.com/parts/PAR-2169/

For what you are proposing, consider, too, one of the "packages" put together by Summit, or an Edelbrock Performance Package. They have all of the parts and pieces, and the engineering and testing to put the correct stuff together is all done. The Edelbrock is especially well done in that respect, and it is all USA manufactured by Edelbrock - if that is any consideration for you, and the cost will likely be less tha piece by piece gathering and fitting.