For god only knows what reason, I find myself once again building another set of cast iron heads... If I sound bitter about it, it's probably mostly because as I sit here typing this I have a sliver of metal in my eye that refuses to come out. I'll be sure to include the cost of new safety goggles and the eye doctor visit next time I'm pondering cylinder head options.

Moving on, maybe someone can give me some input on a couple things so I can get these things finished up. For what its worth, these are the 452 heads I'll be throwing on the 413 so they will retain the stock size valves. I've been cleaning them up using the template kit and widening the runner above the short turn just a bit. Although I don't expect to get carried away, I was also planning on opening up the push rod pinch area and doing a quick match port on the intake. My questions and concerns at this point are...

1.) When using the Mopar template kits, it looks like most of the 60 degree cut gets removed from the bowl. Does this sound right? Is it critical to retain the 60 degree angle?

2.) With regard to opening the push rod pinch area, is there a general measurement for how wide you can go as a rule of thumb? The area seems a bit thin to me and I don't want to get carried away.

3.) Lastly, these are stock type valves with no back cut. I'm leaning towards adding a 30 degree back cut to them but haven't committed yet. Is the gain at low lift enough to offset the small loss at the higher end? I'm assuming yes but I know there are guys on here that have way more knowledge about this stuff than me.

As always, I appreciate the input guys. -Trent