I live in the Seattle area, so everything is more expensive here, but shopped around for some head work and it was over $2k to get some irons redone. I figured it was worth it to just spend the $3k on aluminum.
The new aluminum heads have some big advantages:
1. Obviously, weight. 80 lbs off the front of your car.
2. Higher comp ratio. More compression=more efficiency. Can run a larger cam, while keeping the same idle/driving manners. Probably helps mileage.
3. Modern heart shaped combustion chamber. More efficient than the old iron chambers, requires less ign advance. Probably helps mileage/emissions.
4. Flows out of the box. I’ve heard stock KRE d-ports flow around 260 cfm, compared to an iron d-port at 210(?).
Really boils down to cost for me. If you can get a local shop to spruce em up for about $1000-1200, and you’re happy with the way it runs now, go for that. One caveat: if you ever want to sell the iron heads, I doubt you’d get anywhere close to $1000 for em.
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67 LeMans, 326, M20, 3.31 12 Bolt
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