I am looking for some real life experience from people who run max wedge size heads on their cars that mainly see the streets with the occasional strip run. Are you happy with your heads or do you wish you would have went with the standard port size? Did you lose more bottom end power than expected? When replying can you post you car's combo (model, weight, engine, rear ratio, converter, tire size, head mfg etc more info the better).

A much better way to go about this, IMO, is describe your intended performance goals and how the car will be used, and see what kinds of recommendations come back.

It’s best to have a budget in mind for the engine as well.

"on the street" is too vague of a term. Some guys run full out race engines on the street and they'll tell you that they work just fine. Other guys get bent out of shape if their engine isn't as smooth as a new Cadillac.

My personal opinion is that I'm not going to run a MW port on the street. My street car has a 512 inch low deck with standard port heads and I'm not interested in giving up any low end torque. The car makes enough power as is to get me into serious trouble in just 3 or 4 seconds on the street so why tempt fate with even more top end power. Other people may disagree.

30 years ago I ran a MW engine on the street complete with cross ram and 4.56 gears out back. It worked okay for what it was but I wouldn't drive that combo today on the street.

I am helping a guy right now with a 505 that will have Trick Flow 270 heads and a street roller cam. It will be a pump gas engine with a Sniper EFI setup. I think it will work fine for him since the Sniper will solve a bunch of drivability problems, but I wouldn't build one for my own car that way.

Much bigger heads than that have been run very sucessfully on small mild street engines (eagle heads on a genIII 345 hemi for one example) so I would be shocked if you found them too big on a 44o if thats your concern, heck they would probably would be fine on a 361 with the correct supporting parts like cam, intake carb and such.

where do you want your torque peak to be?
roughly 4500rpm or more like 5500 rpm?

I think all above are correct in their guidance .
I have the Trickflow 270 , max wedge . heads on my 505 daily driver/strip Plymouth . When first fitted the converter felt a bit softer . Got used to this pretty quick and didn't notice after a couple of days

BUT

My combo is not strictly normal for daily use .
68 Satellite , 4.1 gears , 29"street tyre , 5500 converter ( and seems higher now with dominator carb )

I have to pull motor as there is an internal moisture issue . If significant I will put this top end on my 440ci and keep going at least till end of season
Lets face it a 270 head is still smaller than most BBChev heads used , they don't seem to have to many issues on 454 etc

Tex

I appreciate all your replies! For "on the street" I was thinking something easy on the valvetrain and not too steap of gear or big stall. I have been slowly buying parts on the form here when I see a good deal and have accumulated a 440 source stroker kit 4.25" stroke 4.35 bore -27 dish piston, a Indy 440-2d intake standard port. I did buy a new pair of stealth heads in 2009 that have never been installed. I was talking with a local head Porter about the stealths and having them ported and he warned me about them having weak seats along with other issues and it made me gun shy to use them. I figure now any head choice is on the table and I'd like to get some ideas. Buget for the heads would be around $2000. I'd like to stick with a solid flat tappet cam for cost and maintenance. I'd like a cam head combo that would have a long flat torque curve and could take advantage of flow at .600" occasionally and not Reve past 6500. The car is a 65 Coronet, auto, manual brakes, 3.91 gears.

never heard anything bad about the stealth seats, I have max wedge ports on my 512, indy 400-2 intake, 3.54 gear & od trans, love it.

If I had those parts I'd build an engine and drive it. Send the Stealth heads to Porter Racing Heads in VT and have him look them over. Tell him what you're trying to do. I don't think you want to open them up to a MW size, just check them over and give them a Stage II type of porting.

I'd use a smaller flat tappet cam. Lots to pick from, I like the Mopar .528 for a real street car but you could go one or two sizes larger if you want. Maybe take the money you have budgeted for new heads and use some of it for a hyd roller cam??

I'd sell the Indy dual plane and buy a Performer RPM.

The rotating assembly sounds fine to me as long as the compression ratio comes out correct for your application.

I have a low deck 512 in my '65 Coronet with ported RPM heads, cast iron ex manifolds, Sniper EFI and a 246 @ 050 hyd roller cam. It makes about 575 hp which is way more power than I really need on the street.

If I were starting from scratch I go with the trick flow 270. However, since you already have the stealth I would go ahead and use it. Have them ported by somebody like Dwayne or modern cylinder head and have the locks and retainers replaced. Probably should match the spring so they can too. Personally, I've never heard of any problems with the valve seats in the stealth heads. I've got well over 5,000 miles on mine and they don't have an issue with that.

Exactly and although I run RPM standart ports I will go max wedge.........no such thing as "too much" on the street just not enuff nutz to drive em and I know of a few 7-8 second street cars in my town..........

The head porter is a reputable Mopar guy who makes his living doing heads so I put some weight I what he says. He does sell a competing aluminum head but I don't get that vibe from him that he would stear me away from the stealth to sell his stuff. I have looked back through the form and saw some posts about the stealths being soft and some cracking issues a bit before the time I bought my heads so I got nervous. I didn't see anything about dropping seats though. I originally planned to just port the stealths and feel a bit more confident about it now if that is everyones recommendation. AndyF you say to sell the Indy for a RPM? I thought the Indy was a better flowing intake? Running a hydraulic roller cam around 250 @ .50 How frequent are spring changes, lifter rebuids etc for the hydraulic rollers? I thought the sft cam would be easier to maintain and easier on parts but am all ears! I appreciate it!

Engine building is all about matching the parts. The 440Source rotating assembly is a good match for the Stealth heads. A Performer RPM would be a better match for the Stealth heads than the Indy intake. Cam choice is up to you. A hyd roller will work fine with the Stealth heads since the engine is going to make torque down low rather than be a high rpm type of setup. Torque peak will be around 5000 rpm with power peak around 6500 rpm. You don't need 250 @ 050 to hit those numbers, something in the low 240 range should do it.

I stood with my standard port windows on my Indy SR's against the recommendations of my builder at BEST machine and I am happy with them. They make gobs of torque on the low end right where the engine spends most of its time at.
Trick Flo's are your ticket if you option that way.

As stated it all depends on the combo and the performance you are looking for. I have seen some standard port combo's run as hard or harder then some Max Wedge port combo's in street cars only because the large Max Wedge port combo's were not a good matched up combo. Myself I got my EZ heads from Dwayne Porter and he opened up the ports to Max Wedge size but the heads are not heavily ported. But its what I wanted because I felt I run enough gear and converter for it to work and I also may want to step my combo up some more one day.

My eng is 4.15 stroke 440 (493 ci) and I do run 4.30's gears in my street car but I run 30" tall rear tires and a Dynamic 9.5 converter. And I am very happy with my car as it has run 10.70's driven to the track and raced just as I drive it through the full exh on 92 pump gas. And I don't change a thing at the track as I run it just as I drive it. I also don't run a roller cam as I use a solid flat tappet that's .585 & .592 lift with 264 & 270 @ .050 on a 110 LSA.


So I would say yes you can run Max Wedge ports on the street if you run the right combo so it works good. I feel mine works fine as my car has good low end and runs nicely as a driver. Good luck which ever way you decide on. Ron

The standard port size is a very good size for 470 cubes, but going above 512 cubes the large (max wedge) heads have about the same cross section to cubes as a 383 with standard ports. Those 383s seemed to run pretty good,,,,,,

I would size the cylinder head to the cubic inches and rpm range. A standard port head is perfect for a street 440. But for 500 cubes they are way too small and hold the engine back.
A 270cc port is a nice port size for a stroker rather it’s street or strip imo.

I did a back to back dyno test with Trick Flow 240 heads vs. 270 heads. The 270 heads made 25 more hp starting around 6000 rpm. Below that there wasn't a huge difference. Which means that on the street the 240 heads will work better since most street driving is off idle or part throttle. This was on a 470 inch pump gas engine which is fairly typical for a street car.

https://www.hotrod.com/articles/dyno-day-trick-flow-270-mopar-heads/

My street car has a 500" low deck, pump gas 10:1 compression, 557 MP can, and Eddy heads with MW ports. Zero regrets!

I drove it to the track with 3.23 gears, ran 10.69 at 124mph and drove it home.

On the street I can launch in 2nd gear and it feels like a 10 sec pass. I love it.

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you but he's gonna have 35 more cubic inches. I agree that either trick flow head would work great. But if it were me I would get the bigger cylinder head. Because if he decides he wants more later, he will have room.