Well this is gonna be my daily driver but I want it to have as much power as possible without costing me a fortune at the pump. Are you saying I should go with another type of head? And will this force me to change from a TBI setup? I appreciate all the feedback guys.

 

The TBI heads are a swirl port design the are not regarded as a good factory performance head. The pistons look like zonolite factory replacement pistons. They are dished(lower compression) the eyebrows are valve reliefs. If this engine is .080 overbored I would have it sonic checked for cylinder wall thickness. It looks to me like it should be tore down and cleaned the debris between the piston and the cylinder wall will score the cylinder wall. There cames a time when you need to evaluate whether a engine is worth spending money on... from what I see and the information you gave I dont think I would spend money on this one.

 

I already have the engine in the shop. They already cleaned, honed, check for roundness and all that good stuff and the head mechanic says the block is fine, but I dont know if he sonic checked it or not. I will try to give him a call this Monday since they are closed for the rest of the day and not open on Sundays, but money has already been put into this block so I am going to see this one through.

 

Ask him about putting hard block up to the freeze plugs it may help to stabilize the cylinders some. Are you using the same pistons in the picture?

 

I'll talk to him about that. Yeah. The same pistons are gonna be used. They are in great shape and I imagine the pistons 0.080 over would cost me a pretty penny.

 

The pistons are dished which means there are the lower compression type I have a similar set in a 350 I have .040 over though. My block has not been decked(ask you machinst if yours has) my compression figured out to be around 9 to 9.5:1 with a .015 steel shim head gasket and a 64cc head. The best cheepest head you can find in the junkyard is the vortec the problem for you is I dont think the normal TBI manifold will bolt up the vortec uses a specific type of manifold. I would research this a little http://store.summitracing.com/egnsea...5&autoview=sku
I picked up a set of vortecs with the pushrods valve covers and rockers for $200 Ive seen them for less. My machinest tells me that these are generally a long lasting head with a factory 3 angle valve job they are arguably the best flowing factory head you just need to watch the valve lift(some are ok with .450 some .460 you need to measure.

 

Or maybe this would work if you can find one out of the junk yard

TBI L31 applications
1996 G-Series vans over 8,500 GVW w/ 4L80E transmission

 

To do it the right way with Vortec heads, you would want to use a Vortec specific intake manifold. http://www.2quicknovas.com/vortecheads.html

 

The summit manifold is vortec specific for the TBI as the poster said he wanted, the van set up is the factory tbi set up for the tbi intake and the vortec heads. If he went to a carb there are more options.

 

I know, what I said wasn't in reference to the Summit part link. I put that because some have said that to use a conventional gen1 manifold on Vortec heads, all you need to do is drill out a couple of the holes on each side to match the angle of the rest. Although you can do it that way and make it fit, the head to intake manifold ports don't match up very well like they should. Thus my "to do it the right way..."