Thread: 355 build HP and Torque?

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As I continued my research, I started developing a plan. I wanted to end up with a build that would ressemble an original era correct engine, but to have the advantages of the new technologies. I heard the Vortec heads were a great improvement, and found a very low mileage set at a swap meet. They showed very little wear and didn't leak when I did a chamber volume cc check. The plan is to have them magnaflux checked for cracks, pin the studs and install a set of high lift beehive springs.



I cc's the heads and found 2 chambers measured 64.5cc's, and 6 chambers measured 65.5cc's. Should be good enough as is for a street motor. I removed all the rockers being careful to keep each original rocker together with it's own pivot ball, I strung them all together on a string to keep them matched. I marked each valve top with a permanant marker so each one could be put back into it's original location in the heads. Lucky for me there were unique casting marks on each head to tell them apart when they get back from the machine shop to be magnafluxed. One had a "1" and one had a "3" as part of a separate casting mark. Other then that, they both were the same "906" castings. I drilled some holes in a 2x4, marked it for each valve, screwed it to the wall and put all the valves in it for orderly storage until they are ready to put back in the heads:


I wanted to make them look correct for the era, and researched available finned aluminum valve covers, but found they were kind of expensive. At this point I'm thinking the factory 89 covers could be cleaned up and painted silver or aluminum color and probably look very nice. You may have noticed an aluminum set in a previous picture, which I picked up at a swap meet, but they are a very tall set and may interfere with my planned power brake booster and I think the very tall look detracts a little from the factory original look I'm going for.