cylinder head mumbo-jumbo

I'm having some cylinder head nightmares over hear with my 430 heads. couple of questions:

1. I'm having trouble locating good vavle springs. I ordered a set from ISKY, and the OD id much bigger then my stockers which of course was not mentioned in the catolog. I was wondering if anyone had some input on springs other then T/A since my wallet is pathetic.

2. My head casting is 1231109. I've heard that they are the worst flowing Buick head there is. I wasn't too happy to hear that. I know they aren't big port heads, but they can't suck that bad can they? A fellow buick guy said they are done after 3500. can someone tell me they arn't that bad. Iplan o gasket matching and some clean up work but serious porting is out of my league. a little help woud be appreciatted!! Thanks guys

 

Your heads are not that bad
Its true that from the '67-'71 heads '69 heads are less desired in stock form but '72 up are worse uzzled:

 

Comp cams 910 are stock diameter.

 

What fellow Buick guy said they were done after 3500?
3500 what? rpm? dollars? horsepower?
Anyway, this Buick guy sounds like he does'nt know much about Buicks.
How big is the cam you are running? What kind of budget do you have for springs? These are questions that need to be answered . Jim Burek

 

1109 heads have the exact same ports as 70' model heads. They are not big port heads but they can be ported and converted to stage1 size valves or bigger. That was the head charlie evans used in his ported vs. non-ported head dyno test. They flowed 285 for him. My heads are 1109s with 2.16/1.71 11/32 stim valves installed. They flowed 221 at only .300 lift and 261@.400. The exhaust was 203 cfm at .500. These heads are fatter at low lifts then my stageII heads on the race motor.

I have another set of 1109s which had stock stage1 valves with no porting at all. These where on a firebird which whent 11.18 in the quarter and idled smooth.

There are no bad early heads. They are all good. The bad rap comes from the fact that 69' heads had the most cracks between the springs.

have your valves backcut at about 30degs. Dont skip this step or let the machine shop stiff you on this. Cheep horsepower. Three angle valve job is a must. Lay your short side radius back alot. This can bring you .500 numbers up around 240-250 with the small valves.

Now you have a fairly cheep set of heads which can support 440 horsepower.

 

Thanks fo rthe help guys.
the lift on my cam is .488/.464 as far as my budget goes I could drop about 125 or so.

 

If the heads are still on the motor you really are going to have to pull them to use the Isky springs you bought. Most any competent machine shop will have the cutters and know how to cut the spring seats to the desired size without cutting them deeper(a bad thing). As far as dollars is concerned, that cutting operation isnt all that expensive, maybe several dollars a cut. Now will your retainers work with the larger springs too? Hmm? :laugh:

 

I do have the heads off, and there isn't a snowballs chance in hell the retainers will work. the solution is spring cups andnew retainers. lesson learned: th hell to Isky. I work at a machine shop, and this is the third time in weeks their parts have failed or have been incorrect. so screw 'em. thanks guys