We need some advice. We are looking to build a fun street brawler and thinking about installing this 440 into my sons 69 GTX (has a 383 now),and need some advice on the head selection. It's a standard bore short block I picked up several years ago, already assembled with new coated hyperutectics(.090 in the hole), LY rods w/ARP bolts and a EX275HL comp cam. We have some 906's in nice shape that we could use, but we also have some iron 440-1's(complete kit w/dual plane intake, step headers 2 to 2 1/8, max wedge ports) too. Had the -1 heads checked out yesterday and the shop says all else is good but the intake valves are sunk. They suggest upping the valve size from the 2.190's to 2.250 to fix them. IIRC this should be around 9.3 compression at .090 in the hole with the 75cc chambers. Should we stick with the 906's(and compression in the 8's) or will the -1's work okay? My concern is the -1's will be over kill for this motor and be a big dissapointment with a lazy bottom end. It's an auto with a Hughes 3000 stall, 355 gears, 750 holley w/ Pro Form main body. Thanks for any and all suggestions.

Before you go to far double check to make sure that size intake valve will clear the cylinder bore. If it doesn't hit it will be awful close.

With that small cam,go with the 906 heads. The -1 will need more flow.

Thanks for the pointers guys. Looks like these heads would be graet for a stroker, not so hot for a mild street motor.

Here’s some real world experience. I have been running an engine which is somewhat similar to what you are proposing since 2002. I wanted a drivable street motor and wanted to use up a bunch of leftover parts from other projects. A lot of “mis-matched” parts…Here’s the combo:

Unported Indy 440-C (cast iron 440-1’s) with the bigger intake valve and Indy’s crappy 1.5 rockers
Indy single plane 4150 intake (440-2)
Holley 830 DP carb
’67 RB 440 HP block (.030 over)
Wiseco flat top pistons, .990 pin
Manley steel rods
Stock forged 3.75 crank
Hooker Super Comp 1 7/8" headers (with lots of “hammer time”)
Hughes solid flat tappet cam (HEV3945BS) lift int – 0.546, ex. – 0.560, duration, int. 239, ex 245 at .050. Smallest Hughes solid available at the time IIRC
Old MP tach drive dist. w/ MSD box
Coan “Maximum Performance” 10” off the shelf street converter (COA-40320) stall is about 2800 rpm.
4.10 gears
3” exhaust with Cherry Bomb “Vortex” mufflers

Compression ratio is 10.2 to 1, using the “total fill” method to calculate. The car is a ’68 b-body that weighs 3875 with me in it. Quarter mile, it has gone an 11.72 at 115 mph through the exhaust (with slicks). Is this slow for a car with 440-1 heads? I suppose it is. But, I wasn’t really too worried about that (well not too much!). On a sticky track it will pull the left front tire. It idles smooth (but still sounds nice) and starts easy and doesn’t get hot on the street. With street tires it will blow tires away at will, from idle on up – low end torque and responsiveness is not a problem! It bolted together very easily, nothing special. If I was going to change anything, I would use a bigger cam (this one idles really smooth) and get some headers designed to run with the angled plug (there weren’t any available when I built this thing, I don’t think). IMO, it would be difficult to get the same results this easy with a 906 head, everything else being the same. Your results may vary.

With some smaller headers(1 7/8)it would be fine IMO.

However you can mill the 906 heads to get the same compression.

That's impressive! High 11's for a street car is more than enough for what we are looking for. I am curious about your pistons though. You say they are flat tops. Not at zero deck I assume. How far down in the hole are they? Your cam is bigger, and a solid too, so I know we are leaving horse power on the table there. We do have a EX285HL we could use. Maybe just going to a solid is the smartest choice at this time, but we are dealing with lower compression than your motor too. Thoughts? I appreciate all the responses.

392charger: I can't remember how far down in the hole the pistons were. However, I’m pretty sure I have the spec sheet for the pistons. I’m not at home right now and won’t be able to look it up until probably Wednesday night. I’ll post the piston spec’s then.

Thanks gearhead. I was just wondering if it your motor had good quench and if it ran on pump gas with out pinging.

392Charger: The Wiseco piston spec sheet is attached. Of the 2 cams you are suggesting I would l defiantly go with the EX285HL. For cruising around I run 91 octane with a bottle of 104 booster and it is happy. I run 110 octane when I’m going to the track. Total Timing is at 36 BTDC all in by about 2000 rpm. I checked my notes and I did not write down the piston to deck measurement. I am running a Fel-pro head gasket with compressed thickness of .039”. I would also add if you are going to use these heads be sure to check the pushrod to head clearance. My heads needed some grinding to clear the pushrods.