Quote Originally Posted by RadRidesByDan View Post
D2VE aa heads are not bad at all. they are 90cc chambeer heads and one of the better flowing heads, with 262 duration 112degree lobe overlap cam, and timing chain change you can straighten that out pretty good. these heads can handle up to 1500HP. As for detonation....polish out the chamber area to remove any burs or sharpe edges, set the timing according to the fuel used and make sure you have the fuel mixture set right for the atmospheric presure that you live in. Too lean will cause detonation......I have a 460 with D2VE heads.....for your mild buildup daily driver.....dont worry about it...the heads are fine
Generally speaking, the above statement about the D2VE heads is true. By that I mean that they can be made to sustain big horswerpower in the right applications. I am aware of a twin turbo D2VE headed engine that produced dyno numbers in excess of 1700 horsepower on methanol fuel, for example. And as I posted above in post #4, given the 95 octane fuel available to the forum member who started this thread, 400-500 hp might every well be doable.

But there are better OEM 460 cylinder head choices for high performance engines using pump gas fuel here in the United States. And the majority of the members on this forum are in the United States and limited to 92 octane pump gas.

When it comes to typical 450+ hp builds here in the United States which must operate 92 octane (or less) pump gas, the D2VE open chamber head should be considered as the last choice, and for reasons of detonation. (This is particularly true for engines with compression ratios of 10:1 or higher.) But forunately, today many states now offer E85 ethanol fuel and this would work excellenty in a D2VE-heded engine since the detonation is not an issue with E85 and the open chambers and port shapes do indeed offer good cylinder head flow chateristics among the OEM iron heads.

Paul