Just started the teardown on my '81 Camaro (which I've had since '88) to do a complete restification; the finished car will be a daily driver wholly capable of spanking the Farting Hondas. Budget is, as always, tight, so I'm trying to make every purchase count. (Isn't everyone?)

Right now the car has an anemic 350 2bbl from an '80 Z28, a TH350 w/shift kit, and the factory Posi rear (with, I think, 2.73 gears). The block is sound and, with a little luck, I intend on stroking it to a 383. I've already got a Weiand aluminum dual-plane intake and Holley 4bbl carb (750cfm) ready to go.

Aluminum heads would be nice, of course, but they're out of my price range so I'm going to be keeping the factory cast iron heads. I was considering having them extrude-honed but then I downloaded the price list and almost had a heart attack. The current head assemblies have ~90K miles on it so they're going to be completely rebuilt with rollers, but I'm wondering what the best approach is so far as opening the heads up to let 'em breathe a little more -- or even if that's a sensible approach to take. I mean, if I had a choice between spending ~$200 on porting the heads for an additional 40-ish horsepower and spending $300 for new iron heads for an additional 100-ish horsepower, I'll go for the new heads.

I know CC did an iron head build-up not too long ago but as most of my back issues were destroyed during a "mishap" when I moved two months ago, I'm kinda hosed for it. Ideas and insights would be appreciated.  

Hello, I would suggest the late model GM Vortec iron heads. You can get them from GM for about $500. It would probabaly cost about that much to have your heads done. However you would have to get a Edelbrock manifold made for the Vortec heads. I am looking at an article in CC about porting these heads, and one of the sidebars says "These heads have outstanding flow with the potential to make 400-plus horsepower right out of the box." If I was building a Chevy motor I would do everything I could to get a set of these heads. The most important part of building a motor is the heads, then the cam, then an intake that flows as good as the heads. I would get the Edelbrock performer rpm intake for the street. Well good luck I hope this has been helpful. Take care.

[deleted at the request of the original poster]  

Hello, I 2nd the Vortec head idea. I have read article after article about how well they flow bone stock. And that's right about having to buy a Vortec intake. However, if you sell your current intake it should not take much more to buy one. If you want a good bit more power for little money, all you have to do is borrow or buy a Dremel moto tool and get some good how to info on light pocket porting and you have it made. I pocket ported a set of 461 double humps about 12 or 13 years ago just that way and they turned out really well. My machinist even complimented me on the job I did. I remember it took me over 10 hours total to completely pocket port both heads. It is time consuming. That was the only modification that I did at that time and I noticed the difference as soon as I stepped on the gas from a dead stop. It did take me quite  afew bits to complete though. I think I used every stone in my Dremel kit plus a few more that I had to buy seperately. I should mention that I already had an Edelbrock Performer RPM intake, headers, 600 Edelbrock carb, and a Summit 224/234 duration 465/488 lift cam. So I really needed a better flowing head and it really helped.