[Will]

They suck. They're the worst head Pontiac ever made. To save you from making a horrible mistake by actually using them, I'll pay for shipping costs so you can send them to me for proper disposal.

Seriously, the 061 heads are a little-known "possible" performance gem. They are only hampered by their lack of screw-in studs which adds about $150 to the price of rebuilding them for performance use. I say they are a "possible" performance gem because mine don't have a shortblock to go on quite yet and I don't know anyone else who's tested them to see what they'll do.

Here's what I do know about them: They use the 2.11/1.77" valves and are the first "open chamber" head Pontiac produced. The chamber design is very similar (hard to tell the difference side-by-side) to what was eventually used on the RAIV heads. The chamber has a more open design with a bit less quench area and a lot less valve shrouding than any of the other typical open chamber heads produced from '68 - on. The intake ports are shaped pretty much the same as the 670 heads in that they have a very tall short-turn radius which gives them outstanding low-lift flow. Properly ported they can flow great numbers as Phillygoat pointed out. Mine flow 273cfm intake and 185cfm exhaust at .550" lift and have excellent low-lift numbers as well. Not a whole lot of work had to be done to get those numbers.

The unique chamber design and the promise of a little extra power from a design the engineers felt was good enough for the RAIV heads is what convinced me to go with them. If you can swing the extra cost to convert them to screw-in studs they'll make a fine performance head.

If you don't feel like paying the extra money for the screw-in stud conversion, I'm not kidding about paying the shipping costs if you'll send them to me.

[This message has been edited by Will (edited 11-24-2000).]