Hey Sean,
Looks like I quoted the wrong post

The Big EZ comes with a 2.19 intake but Best Machine opened the heads up to 2.250. So we'll be able to swap the 2.250 intakes over to the -1 heads. We kind of have to go this way anyway since the Big EZ castings are not available at the moment. The other choice was to step up to the 572-13 heads but that was going to be a bunch more money and time to replace pistons as well as other parts.

The car was pretty consistent in the low 9's the last time I saw it. I don't think I saw the car run at all in 2023. They toured around to some different tracks but I never happened to be at the same spot.

Heads are leaking coolant in multiple ports. I've heard that it can be a problem with the Big EZ heads, especially when they are opened up for a larger intake valve. We rolled the dice on this engine and lost. I have a lot of confidence in the -1 345 package. I've seen a lot of those heads in use and haven't heard of any issues with them.

It might be worth sending the heads to Indy to see if they can be repaired.

Do you know what areas of the port are leaking?

I know a guy with both 440-1's and 572-13's that would consider selling one or the other. Same guy is modeling some 1.3 ish C/H 572-13 pistons around a 4.505 bore.

I talked to Indy about that and they said it is a known problem and that they can repair the heads. The leaks are all in the same area on each intake runner. In the bowl area above the valve seat near the short turn. You have to rotate the head at just the right angle to see the crack.

The engine builder said he doesn't want to put heads with multiple repairs back on the car so he voted for new castings.

I figured that’s where they would be leaking from.
A lot of material gets removed from there with the 325 program.

The EZ intake ports are not the same as the SR either.
In ootb form, they’re better……..and easier to get into the 340+ range.

Hard to believe I sold that cam to your friend 15 years ago!!

The cost to go with 572-13 is high, since you have to change rocket gear, pushrods, pistons. But power at that level is never cheap. Top it off with a recert on my car, since i am certain it can now run sub 8:50 and exceeds 150 mph, needing a head restraint system this year. In my case, going from a 550 cube 15/1 compression combo with maxed out 440-1 heads sporting 2.30/1.78 valves, dyno numbers were 926 hp. A move to 572-13 cnc385 heads, same size at 549, but an aluminum block, yielded 982 hp at a higher 7600 rpm . Now if i build a bigger shortblock,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Right! He's really happy with it. At the rebuild, he considered more power so, I loaned him a bigger one to test fit but it didn't have the P2V to use. I more showed the specs to give a performance context to this thread.