Now onto the ports themselves.
The extensively ported 430 Head (And these started out as "Big Port" heads)
And the as cast Aluminum head port. This port configuration is actually taken directly from the Stage 2 Street Eliminator head, and is known to flow easily over 300 cfm, with very minor touch up work. This port is a "known commodity" to Buick Head porters.
Here we see the fully ported Exhaust of the 430 Head. There are a couple of notable things to point out here.. first, like most of the 35 year old heads out there, there is some corrosion damage to the exhaust flange, which could be cleaned up with a cut on that flange, and you can see the heli-coil in the upper bolt hole, due to a bolt breaking off. Both of these situations raise the price when you consider doing "old iron" and cannot be overlooked.
And our new exhaust port... in this sequence of pictures, old vs. new, it is easy to see that the port has been re-configured, to nearly perfectly center the exhaust valve, which will greatly increase the ports ability to flow air, and allow for extra work to be done, to vastly outdo anything we could ever do with the iron heads. That Iron head is maxed out, and very thin in some spots.. It does flow 212 cfm, which was enough to support 680 HP, in a roller cam equipped 494 race engine.
And, of course, there is nothing like new material to work with.
From the pictures, it is not hard for even the most casual of viewer, to see the superiority of this new head, in design, construction, and material. This new head weights just over 30 Lbs, bare, as compared to 61 lbs, for the iron head.
And lastly, it looks like the boys down in Scottsdale, were doing their homework, as usual. Since I just happened to have a .038 over 455 in the shop, I tossed a head on to look at how the valve relief cuts in the combustion chamber, would line up, with the outside diameter of the cylinder.
I am impressed... even the "normal" .030 over 455 rebuild, will line up nicely, and I don't believe that standard bore engines will have any issues here.
Click Here for the finished Pictures of these heads.