Ported heads or Cams?

[Kuestone]

I am having my longblock built and I can only afford stage2 ported heads or stage2 cams. Car is going to be a blower application, so what do you guys think I should go with?

p.s. stage2 cams idle would be awesome, but if ported heads have better gains, then those. Also Iam in california so emissions friendly sniffer test. I think I can get my car detuned to pass the sniffer.

 

[Gearbanger 101]

Go with the ported heads. Blower cars love to breath. A lumpy idle is nice, but maximum airflow for the time being is what you want. Not to mention if later on down the road, you still want the cams, you don't have to pull the heads off of the engine to install them. The same can't be said if you do things the other way around.

That being said....if a blower is in the future, you might want to consider waiting until you're able to build the short block up while you're doing the heads. Tearing the engine down on three separate occasions (once for heads, once for cams and once for a built long block) just seems counterproductive and a real waste of time and money to me. Be patient and wait until you're able to afford to do them all at once!

 

[Mike97gt]

+1 on the heads..

do the heads first then the cams, plus you may want to go with blower cams if your going blown, vt sells a couple of different blower cams.

 

[DropTopPony]

Both at the same time would be ideal...Rob a Bank, thats what i did....no really i did. It was my piggy bank but i still robbed it.

 

[hotmustang331]

Go with the ported heads like these guys said. Its far more effecient to just pull the valve covers, or the front cover (if wanting to degree them) when you do cams later, then pulling the cams out of the old heads, installing them in the new ones, then istalling the heads. LOTS of work.

But on a side note....contrary to what most think, some nice blower cams from VT SHOULD actually yield quite abit more power than ported heads alone. Reason being is that the stock cams dont provide enough lift/durration to take advantage of the extra flow. P&Pd heads seem to really shine near .550-.600 lift. I think the stockers are .500, and the ported heads arent ALOT better at that point.

Stock 2V heads with nice cams will darn near match stock MUCH MUCH better flowing 4V heads in blower applications. In testing with 2.2KBs, a ported head/blower cams 2V (225ish CFM head flow) will actually make more power (25+) than the 03-04 cobra DOHC engine (head flow of around 266 CFM). The head flow difference between the above is 41 CFM....about the difference between a stock 2V head and a ported one. (just an exaple of "head flow doesnt mean much without the proper cams to take advantage of it")

I have seen JUST cams gain over 100RWHP in higherend blower apps.

 

[Pennywise2]

+2 I would definitly do the ported heads first.Sometime in the future if you plan to do cams install the stage 2 cams that's the best way to go in my opnion.I would also look into the heads and cams at www.vtengines.com .

 

[GT04Mustang]

+2 I would definitly do the ported heads first.Sometime in the future if you plan to do cams install the stage 2 cams that's the best way to go in my opnion.I would also look into the heads and cams at www.vtengines.com .

+3 for the heads first... I did them both ...but I have the engine out so y not! But deffinately to the pp first