Something you don't see very often. This is a 400 inch SBC, factory cast iron block with four bolt mains topped off with a set of Pontiac heads. I don't know the full story on the heads, evidently Pontiac got into some kind of racing in the 90's where they needed a part number head in order to compete so they designed a 15 degree racing head for the Chevy block. I know a couple of hard core Pontiac guys and neither of them believed me when I said we were dyno testing a SB Pontiac. I had to send them pictures and they still didn't believe it.
The heads kick ass. They have big intake ports, spread exhaust ports, 15 degree valves, cast for Jesel rockers, and very tiny combustion chambers. This engine is 14:1 compression with a flat top piston. The intake was cast for a 4500 flange so you know they were serious about the airflow.
We had it on the dyno the other day and it made 675 hp on one of the first pulls. That was at 30 degrees of timing and the crankcase vacuum hadn't been turned up yet. So the engine might make 700 hp once it is broken in and has regular oil in it and full crankcase vacuum. Not competitive in NASCAR anymore but I bet it was 30 years ago when these heads were cast.
Anyway, just kind of cool to see someone drag some ancient heads into the dyno room and have it spin the needle over hard.

They are 867 heads or some version of 867 heads cast by Brodix. Are you sure they are 15 degree?

They are basically an old version of a Brodix 10X.

https://youtu.be/SryvK9ej_pw?si=Mz1ah8h0vmxOJk6i

Neat Andy, do you guys still use fastlane to re work/ fix your head stuff up?

Nice build and thanks for sharing! From what I recall the W8 still had an edge up in power for in-line heads even back in those times. Not sure what the rules allowed for 'parity' to equal the fields back then?

Their were also Buick heads. I think they were 10 deg. valve angle.

Yes, there are still a good amount of these kicking around and they do make respectable power. They really were rockstars when 23 degree technology sbc stuff stalled. Fast forward now though, and Guys like Darrin Morgan and Chad Speier are doing things with 23 degree heads that were unthinkable 20 years ago, (although you have to run a large x huge cam). The high-end stuff now is the 9/10/13 degree stuff from shops like MBE and RFD. Not uncommon at all for SBC-based guys to be bolting on heads that will flow 400+ on the intake... Flow numbers are ONLY 1 piece of the puzzle for heads, but let the idea of 1 intake cfm for every cubic inch sink in. Guys like Al and Shiloh know full well that end of the spectrum. That's why their stuff runs crazy fast

Yes they are 15 degree. The guy sent a head to JE so they could measure it before making the pistons. JE wanted to confirm the valve angle and make a mold of the chamber. The chamber is less than 50cc so it is tiny.

We send all of the really difficult head work to Fast Lane. The easy stuff goes to a local shop.

Those heads are not exactly state of the art, even then. But they were better than the other 23 degree offerings. We had a set of the Buick versions back then on a comp car. These days there are some pretty stout oinline heads available and yes the W stuff is still pretty good even now.

Nice! We had a set of those heads (came from one of Ricky Rudd's cars) on a 434" sb Chevy that made 700 hp on the dyno. Later swapped them for a set of AFR 227 cnc heads and picked up a good bit.

Here is a picture of the bare heads. They were cast by Brodix and they have a Brodix serial number on them so I looked it up on the Brodix website. Turns out the heads were cast in 1989 so they have been around a while. Still look good though and they make good power.

We had it back on the dyno today so we played with timing. The engine picked up 10 hp by going to 32 degrees total. So ended up at 685 hp and 590 torque. Not bad for a passenger car block.

The Brodix intake is cast for a 4500 carb but it came with a cool 4150 adapter so we decided to try it. We ran it with a QF 1050 AN carb and it made 675 at 32 degrees of timing. So we lost 10 hp by using the adapter and a big 4150 carb. That might be worth it to someone who has a nice 4150 carb. Give up 10 hp but they don't need to buy an expensive new carb.

Any pics of the adapter?

A 400 chevy block is not a "good" one by any means. They aren't any thicker than any mopes, hope it was sonic'd or filled.

The 4500 to 4150 adapter is slick since it only adds 1/2 inch to the height of the manifold. The taper part of the adapter hangs down inside the plenum of the 4500 intake. Obviously the intake manifold has to be designed for this adapter. I didn't check the Brodix website for this adapter so I don't know if it is still available. I'd never seen one of these before.