most older FUELIE or camel hump heads are now 45 plus years old and in need of a total rebuild with new hardened valve seats new valve guides , new valve springs seals etc., even with mild port work they won,t flow as well as the newer vortec style ports, with mild port and bowl work, making the cost to value far from ideal, in a performance engine rebuild, you could very easily spend in excess of $600-$700 installing new valve seats, larger valves valve springs and screw in rocker studs in older fuelie heads only to find they flow CONSIDERABLY LESS , air flow and as a result make noticeable less power than a set of out of the box aftermarket cylinder heads, of a more current design.
on the plus side they were originally thicker castings than the more modern 305 head light weight casting heads that are more crack prone , but the older heads age makes even that theoretical advantage a non-issue.
yes moneys hard to come up with , but a carefully selected set of aftermarket heads will provide far more value per dollar than refurbishing older fuelie or trying to upgrade , port and re-valve,re-spring and modify 305 smog heads.
Now all this said, please check with your local machine shop as to the COST, youll incur. refurbishing any O.E.M. cast iron or aluminum cylinder heads, because its very likely that by the time you hot tank or oven and shot-blast clean them
, have them dye or magnetically checked for cracks and pressure and have, a clean-up decking,pass on the milling machine,insert new valve guide inserts, select and install bigger valves , and that requires new valve seats with a good multi angle valve job, pay for and install the correct matched springs, keepers, and retainers,that came with the new cam, if you bought the matching components instead of trying to keep cost low and use the O.E.M. valve springs which are unlikely to match the application, you might be better off to buy new cylinder heads??
I can assure you that money spent on more modern head designs will pay off in much better results, for the money spent in the long term
READ THE LINKS
http://garage.grumpysperformance.co...ed-up-fuelie-heads-for-cheap.2099/#post-17024
http://garage.grumpysperformance.co...-corvette-l98-heads-any-good.5521/#post-23459
http://garage.grumpysperformance.com/index.php?threads/should-you-buy-bare-or-assembled-heads.534/
http://garage.grumpysperformance.com/index.php?threads/sellecting-cylinder-heads.796/#post-2596
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