452 heads any good for performance?

Just curious if they can make any power after porting or clean up. I have a pair from the 400 I just bought, would like to sell.

Had a set on a 440 that flowed better than my old 906s .. the other good thing is the have the hardened valve seats for unleaded fuels..

cool! maybe I can get something out of them. any idea what their worth needing cleaning up? they probably need everything.

The last set I sold that where stock I got 150 out of them. I don't know what the market is now ..

ok, thanks

👍🏻👍🏻

Is there any of the hardened seat left after installing 1.81 exh valves?

452 heads can be decent if your willing to spend the money to make them flow. Here is a set I did a few years ago. The customer spent 1200 big ones. At this point I would rather point customers to aftermarket heads. 452 cores are worth 100-200 bucks

Herb McCandless bought a bunch of the 452 cores back when Mopar decided to lower their inventory years ago, he did some porting and testing on them and got one of the magazine writers to do a feature article on how good they where
That was before Zeeker was opened and offering new aluminum heads
That magazine article helped Herb sell a lot of those heads

Yep. If you have to pay someone else to do the work, they won't be cost effective compared to the aftermarket offerings.

Good to know they have some potential. I will be happy to get $100. Ill get those off the block and see how they look. Thanks

I've got 4 sets here on my basement floor. Put an ad on the Milan Dragway fb page about a year ago. $40/pair. Got 1 guy interested, locally, that was going to come over after his next payday. Still waiting.
Got several inquiries for 915's from far reaching states (TX being one).

Didnt think they would be a easy sale. Racejunk maybe?

Dulcich has a very good porting article on them, worth reading. If you Google it I'm sure you can locate it. EDIT "dulcich mopar porting articles"

I don't think you'd find many performance head shops to refurbish an old set of iron heads, install all new performance oriented parts, and port them....... For anywhere near what you can buy a set of E-Street heads for.

About the only time I do iron heads anymore is for resto type builds, or where the rules require it.

IMO, the cores only have any value at all if they aren't cracked....... Which is often pretty hard to know until they're cleaned and magged(about $100).

Cleaned, magged cores that check out good are probably worth $150-200...... To someone that really has to have a set.

Unknown cores? $40 max IMO........knowing you're taking a gamble on them.

Your wasting your time keeping them.. you wont
ever sell them.. all they are doing is taking
up good space

Those old 452 iron heads are not worth messing with unless you have to run iron. We did a $1,900 set back in 2006 for a 451 stroker. 9.5:1 compression, 91 octane pump gas, solid roller, ported M1 single plane, 950cfm Quick Fuel 4150. It did however make 588 LB-FT @ 4,600 rpm and 621 HP @ 6,100 rpm. So........there is some potential in them.

When was the last time you ported any iron
heads.. I wont even waste my time to go look
at a set now days

What would that be in 2017 dollars?

I do a few sets every year.

I did a set this spring, and have 3 more sets here to do now.

Hah! Those were a bunch of work. There are only two of us in the shop. My son has said, "Never again!" I'm 70 years old and I too have all the iron up my nose I care for.

Come to think of that; is it 'safer' to inhale iron-dust or aluminium dust?
Recall to have read somewhere that aluminium could cause (?) Parkinson perhaps, or Alzheimers maybe, I forgot...

Would one charge more to port iron heads or aluminium heads?
Iron taking longer to remove or aluminium for the hazardous health dangers....?

C'mon Jim........ I see those posts over on fabo about you guys doing the LAX/MAX SB heads.

Looked like more than a bowl blend going on there