Mild 440 build with KB 184 pistons, what cylinder head

I am building a mild 440, I have a set of KB 184 pistons. What cylinder heads do you recommend ? I have some 906's & 452 iron heads. Can these pistons work with the 440 source heads or Edelbrock rpm's.

THANKS

"Compression height of this piston is 1.992". .140" quench dome, centered pin. Suggest claying quench dome for clearance. Closed chamber heads require the quench dome to be machined down.
Ring set pt. no. 4320AM8. Kit no. KB184KTM. "

what this means is that the pistons need to be mocked up in the block and measured with your heads for clearance, and machined appropriately.

so it's kind of a machine shop job for that part of the assembly at least.

They should be these pistons. I had to do alot of mocking up with these pistons with that quench dome. They are made to work with open chamber heads (906's or 452's) will work but its alot of work. They are made for the quench pad to go up in the open chamber part of the head. Not to raise comp but to get quench where the piston comes about .045 within the head. But every cyl head chamber is not the same size and you have to check each piston deck height as they will vary some without a complete eng blueprint. I can tell you on my old 440 I used them with 906 heads and my piston quench pad heights were not all the same as they were anywhere from .053 to .057 above the deck. And my head chamber depth's ran from .024 to about .027. So I moved pistons around to get them as close as I could but you have to make sure you have the right pistons in the right bores for the valve notches to match up. So dont pay attention to these as they are not all right. But after I got the piston pad height as close as I could I started working (grinding) the head chambers to get them all as close as I could for the piston they were matched to in the cylinders. All in all its alot of work. I also had all my rods done and new bearings on them when I was setting the pistons up in the cylinders. Also the 906 heads I used were already cut .060. I ended up with a head chamber around .027 deep with the quench pad about .055 above the deck. So I had to use a custom Cometic head gasket that was .074 thick. That meant the quench pad that was .055 above the deack would now be about 0.19 away from the head flat area and then with the .027 deep head chamber it gave me about .046 (.019 head flat to piston pad plus .027 chamber depth = .046) quench. If I were you and you definetly want to use them pistons I would have the machine shop cut the quench pad off and use it as a flat piston. You wont have quench but unless you have the know how to do all the work to get the right quench using the quench pad pistons with the pad on them I would just have them machined flat and set the eng up like that at 9.0 to 9.5 comp at the most. Now if you really have the money get closed chamber heads and then build it with a flat piston with quench as its much easier like that.
Basically they are alot of work and if you are not a good eng builder I would look to go a different way. But if you have to use them we here will help you all we can. Ron

Just an FYI the latest version of the KB184 has symmetrical valve reliefs.
Keith

Check my post on the mild 440 build thread on the Q&A forum. They will work with any open chamber OEM head. Yes, it will require some measuring and probably some extra machining, but the end result is worth it.

If you use the closed chamber 915 or the Edelbrock 84cc or the Stealth head you will need to machine the "quench domes" down until they are at zero deck. That's not a bad option, because then you have real squish plus the better flow of the aftermarket heads.

R.

you can get edlebrock heads in 88cc open chamber, they work well on mine

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you can get edlebrock heads in 88cc open chamber, they work well on mine

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Those would be easier than doing stock iron open chamber heads , at least you start with chamber depths that are all the same.

I did a couple engines with step head pistons , the first set of heads I machined the chambers by hand on a bridgeport , the second I used a bridgeport with a prototrak and wrote a program to do the half moon cutouts.