picked up some heads, and wondered if they are worth using

[sduckworth13]

I picked up these heads from a guy that races circle track here in Missouri. The are 3951598 Chevy 400 sbc heads. I know thay have stainless steel valves in them, beyond that I don't much about them. Can anyone tell the valve size. Casting number shows they have 1.94 exhaust valves and 1.5 intake valves. But the valves look alot larger than the valves on my 333882 heads which are 1.94/1.5 also. Can anyone help me out. Thank you

[Rich 5150 69]

Some of the 400 / truck heads had 160 exhaust valves and 194 intakes.

[sduckworth13]

I plan on putting these on my 327 small journal crank that has 9.5:1 pistons it is bored .30 over and has a L79 cam in it ( so the PO said). The 333882 I have on it are just not doing it for me. I picked these heads up for 125.00. What kind of hp bump I'm I looking to gain with these 400 heads. Thanks

[Captainfab]

I don't think you will gain anything with those SB 400 heads. If anything you might loose just a tad compression. There is absolutely nothing special about heads from a SB400. Both the 882's and these 598 heads have around 76cc combustion chambers. Heads with chambers that big on a 327 with flat top pistons, are going to drop your compression down to around 8 to 8.5-1. Of course this is assuming your 327 has flat top pistons, but those are the most commonly used. What you need are heads with a chamber size of around 64cc's.

Originally Posted by sduckworth13

I plan on putting these on my 327 small journal crank that has 9.5:1 pistons it is bored .30 over and has a L79 cam in it ( so the PO said). The 333882 I have on it are just not doing it for me. I picked these heads up for 125.00. What kind of hp bump I'm I looking to gain with these 400 heads. Thanks

[sduckworth13]

Captain, I left out that they have been milled to about 70cc instead of the original 76cc. That probably doesn"t help much either.

[sduckworth13]

Thanks Captain for the help, I guess I will be giving them back tomorrow.

[Marv D]

Milled to around 70cc would mean roughly 0.070" making the deck pretty thin in what was a notoriously thin deck anyways. Typical flat mill takes 8-10 thousands per cc.

Pretty much a 'ditto' here from what said. Unless you needed a set of large chamber heads for some reason,, and felt comfortable these had been recently rebuilt (which isn't apparent) ,,, I think you spent $125 that could have been used elsewhere more wisely.

Returning them sounds like a good move.

Saving and getting a decent set of new aftermarket heads is even a better move.

[sduckworth13]

Gave those heads back today, hope to sell the project I have been working on. Trading it in for a 1969 shortbed C10 with 450+hp ( I'll tear it up too). Can't wait to dump money into it too. Thanks for the advice on the heads guys.