First flow is right out of the box untouched. Second test is after a quality port job, but not maxed out.


Any guesses as to what these heads are?

Batton W2? They look to have the same numbers as my old W2's 318-214 @ 600.....Phill

I'd say W5's.

Your Detective work paid off

What are those going on?

Did RyanJ do the work on them?

426 cube resto block, 4.11 custom Scat crank, Carillo rods, Diamond pistons, Indy intake (the only one that fits the heads so far) stout roller cam, pump gas street car combo.

Chuck at Best Machine ported them and said thy have plenty of meat left in them for future porting if desired, I asked that he keep in conservative. The flow numbers surprised him, said the bare heads were a high quality piece.

OK, so what heads are they? Are they imported heads? Our 360-1 heads that are not all out ported, flow very similar to that as well. Ive never seen those heads B4.

They are an old head long obsolete, I got lucky and scored an NOS set in the boxes on ebay a while back. I've been told that they were developed for ARCA racers (short track NASCAR) back in the late 70's. They were over $1,200.00 bare each when new in 1979, that's allot of cake back then! Chuck said they are one of the highest quality castings he's seen.

These look allot like Indy 360-1's, so much so that it's easy to believe that these were the template for that head. Chuck said that these have a bit more porting meat than the 360's and should have more potential than the Indy's if taken all the way out.


Either way I'm happy with them, they look allot like iron heads (rough cast on the ends) so with paint they'll be pretty stealthy other than the lack of freeze plugs on the ends.

Diamond Heads: http://www.shadydellspeedshop.com/diamondheads.htm

They're from the Early 80's ~1981-1982ish

The rectangle port version are very similar to an INDY head. It was just a modified W2 cast in aluminum. Bigger exhaust port & much less restrictive water jackets around intake bowls & no water jacket under the short turn so you could make the intake ports as big as your heart desired. Also have little wider valve spacing than a W2, sort of like an INDY for use with larger valves.... They were VERY $ back in the day & very few sets were cast, I was told around 50-75 sets of the version Scott has by an old timer who still works at Diamond. These heads were what Ritter/Weber started out with in their Comp Eliminator program & evolved into Arrington heads. Arrington was also involved in having Diamond cast these heads for circle track use..... They were used in ARCA in the 80's & carry a Direct Connection casting/part #.

Make about same power as a rectangle INDY head.... 18* valve angle. Little soft on the castings & Ritter/Weber had problems blowing the corners off of them on their engines, but they were running 17:1. Use W2 rocker gear.....

Yes you can take them further than an ICH head... they have NO water jacket under the intake short turn, you can push the ST into oblivion (generally makes head flow more) The set I have pics of on my site has almost NO short turn, whoever ported it just killed it, so much so, the seats were starting to pound their way down into the ST because of a lack of stability. Yours do look like a nice casting, you can tell how good the alum quality is by looking at the "shine" on the machined surfaces. Most of the ones I have seen have been porous & soft. I think yours were definitely a later casting.... I have a Virgin set of Arrington heads that are similar, VERY very nice quality castings, but most Arrington heads are soft & porous. (Arringtons were cast at Diamond as well)

Very interesting! I figured with all the over-seas copy cat heads out there, that somebody may have done the same with a batten or arrington style head or even a 360-1 head. I guess the market for SB heads still isnt good enough to start copying them.

No, I don't predict any Pro Comp Electronics copies of INDY heads anytime soon LOL. We are the red headed stepchild of the V8 performance aftermarket. Even Pontiac guys now have Billet blocks etc available....

a keeper,thanks.

Ryan, do you know of any other intakes that might fit these? I'd like to have a choice, so far it's just the Indy.

Any W2 intake.... An INDY is just a W2 intake

The following pics are of the heads before any mods were made, I'll post pics of what they look like now when I get them in hand.

Ryan, with these intake ports you are saying any W2 intake will work?

Exhaust side

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