Which heads are best

hemichuck said
W2's are not all that expensive new are they? I see the rockers and everything at swap meets all the time. Price is not all that big a deal, at this point in life I can afford about anything I want. I just dont need another car sitting around that I will get little time to drive. Ive had this 70 340 Swinger since the early 90's and I have a 71 Charger SE thats a U code 440 HiPo car. The Dart was a factory air, PS,Power disc brakes, rear defroster, Am/Fm thumb wheel radio 340 Auto with a 3.23 Posi. I changed it to big bolt pattern and put a QA1 crossmember and upper/lower control arms and adjustable struts on it. I also put the Borgenson steering box on it. I really just want a cruiser I can get in and tool around town or go on a road trip in. The Charger is all redone and has the original 440 HiPo with auto, air , tilt, cruise, am/fm, rear def., power windows etc. Its pretty much all stock except the color. On top of all that we have 2 vipers, 2 diesel trucks, 2 Dakotas and a Grand Caravan not to mention a Sprinter and a 1966 Belvedere !! four door. Im running out of places to keep the stuff.

W2's are only expensive because any real performance heads won't use a factory rocker. Not even GM crap. Before I started building engines I walked in on a Chevy guy trying to adapt W2 heads to a SBC. He said there ain't a SBC head that was even close to a W2 head. Obviously, this was about 1981 or 1982. But the fact is, any conventional 23* Chevy head will get killed by a W2.

I say go for it.

BTW, I'm not even considering a set of quality ported W2's. Back in 2000 I made 565 HP on a 408 with ported eddys on a cam that made max power at 5200!!! It would have easily went over 600 if I could have gotten the fat, lazy, stupid, forum surfing customer to turn the engine 6500, which would have been easy with his parts. Add another 70-75 with W2's and add another 60 or so for well prepped, ported W2's. I have no idea why a 500 HP 408 is considered bad *** 16 years later.

EDIT: I hated that customer with a passion. If I ran into him today, I would throat punch him until his nose bled, for all the screwings that joker did to good people. They dyno was a 3rd party dyno for the haters.