What is a great bang for the buck head upgrade?

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tubotoys12

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Thinking about doing a head and ca upgrade in my 95.At this point no blower or turbo.have a nos kit i may put on it.So what are you guys runing and like and think it was worth the money? thanks
 
I can't answer the question as I have stock heads / cam but bang for the buck wise go supercharger. I priced vic jr heads and a comp cam a while back and by the time you add in all the gaskets, fasteners, roller rockers, lifters etc it was over 3k. You can get an strim kit for less than that and make more power. I tried NOS as well and didn't like it. Bottle always seemed to be empty.
 
If you have a NOS kit already I'd put it on for now. I have a 10lb bottle behind my passenger seat. It's got a bottle heater and a gauge. Without a bottle heater the bottle will seem empty and won't get as good results. I use a 75 shot mainly so I don't have to retard timing so much. I keep my base timing at 10*. If I do a 100 shot or more I have to turn it back a few degrees. I can go to the drags twice and spray to and from a few times on 1 bottle with the 75 shot. I got a supercharger (Powerdyne kit) on my work bench that I am eventually gonna try but not in a hurry cause to me I'm having fun with the spraying it for now. But I will get the charger in it by fall. I have to upgrade my fuel system first.
 
What's your goal? I love NA power, but as others have said it is not the best bang for the buck. The list above said it will be $3k before you're done and I would add another $1k to that just for having the heads checked and any rework needed before installation. Even the best aftermarket heads are still mass produced and bolting them on out of the box is a good way to get nowhere near your money's worth out of them. The guide and valve work on out of the box heads can be absolutely terrible even from the big names and it doesn't matter what you do with the rest of the head if the guides and valve job are junk.
 
Thanks guys my goal is to not get out of hand i seem to do this everytime :flamed: with that being said the blower opt,makes a ton of sense.What else do i need to do for fuel manegment mass air throttle body? Ps,Brian your truck look's sick love it nice work and style.
 
tubotoys12 said:
Thanks guys my goal is to not get out of hand i seem to do this everytime :flamed: with that being said the blower opt,makes a ton of sense.What else do i need to do for fuel manegment mass air throttle body? Ps,Brian your truck look's sick love it nice work and style.
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It will run fine on speed density. Simplest fuel system would be a FMU to increase fuel pressure proportionate to boost and an inline booster pump that is activated by a hobbs switch. Plenty of info on all of this on this site.
 
Right now the Twisted Wedge 11R street port heads are hard to beat for the money unless you are willing to buy used.
 
If you do stay NA then a used set of twisted wedge heads are hard to beat for the price. But a H/C swap isn't a simple task to take on. All the small stuff is what will make it cost so much to swap. As mentioned a blower will be about the same price and be way easier to install. Then it's just a pulley change away from more power.
 
And the blower runs and drives pretty much just like a stock truck until you get into boost. The only real penalties are the added weight, which most won't notice anyway, and the the added risk of detonation which can be tuned around easily enough. The only real advantage of going H/C is that it can get better mileage.
 
I'm not talking about an 800hp fire breathing small block getting better mileage than comparable artificially aspirated engine. It won't. But that isn't the situation we are talking about. A mild NA application with a roller conversion and more compression can do better than an engine that uses power to spin a blower all the time.
 
Sure enough, more compression and better heads/intake on the 351w, can equate to equal, if not improved mpg vs stock mpg. Sounds crazy but its happened.

I like the turbo option for bang for the buck, with stock engine.
 
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What would people recommend for a good head upgrade? any good write-ups on this? Put a supercharger on isnt an option I would entertain... i'd rather buy a gen 2 if that were the case.
 
svtlightning207 said:
What would people recommend for a good head upgrade? any good write-ups on this? Put a supercharger on isnt an option I would entertain... i'd rather buy a gen 2 if that were the case.
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Just curious but why are you so opposed to a supercharger? Me I would rather supercharge a 100 gen1s then own a "jellybean" truck! nothing against a Gen2 I just don't like the body style. Also there were way less Gen1s then Gen2s. What about a turbo? Some people don't like that constant whine of a blower, that's the reason I prefer a turbo over a supercharger.
 
svtlightning207 said:
What would people recommend for a good head upgrade? any good write-ups on this? Put a supercharger on isnt an option I would entertain... i'd rather buy a gen 2 if that were the case.
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Quick search, would reveal a lot of different opinions. Cant go wrong with the big names, kinda have to see what they have, maybe even contact them, kinda match your goals with the best product.

Quick search, would also reveal, these gen 1 guys love to add forced induction.
 
Best bang for buck on heads is don't get cheap ones. Get the best you can for what you got to spend? Get a good name brand like AFR, Edelbrock or Trick flow. What's your budget?
 
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