I've got an 04' LQ4 w/#3 bearing spun, not sure what heads those would be for reference, but was wondering if I should try to find better heads? or just rework these?

I really don't mind putting in the extra work, but lots of people just seem to do head swaps on the truck engines. I plan on running a good truck cam (212/218 #112lsa sounds like it would work fine for me) and maybe throwing together a very mild twin turbo setup at the max end of my performance spectrum.

So I don't need anything radical, but would love to know if it's worth putting all that work into standard truck heads. Thanks for all the advice.

P.S: I should add that I will be doing the P&Ping myself. I'm no pro, but am meticulous in my work. So any directions on where to focus my attention on these heads would help too

 

I believe those are a 317 head. They are a good flowing head, and have a larger combustion chamber to keep the comp down if you were going to go force fed later. You could go bigger on the cam though.

 

Yes, my 317's picked up very substantial CFM from the VJ and short side work.

 

317's are a good factory casting with flow numbers comparable to 243/799 heads. I would just keep the 317's and rework them if it were me. You dont have to get every ounce of flow out of the heads if your going fi anyway. Many people are putting down solid numbers fi with stock 317's.

 

317tq,325rwhp with stock heads and a 228R cam,milled only .020's.,stock motor besides that.

 

That's good to hear, I'll definitely be working over these spare heads.

I've already got lots of plexiglass and a burette for measuring port and CC volume (once I get ambitious enough to move onto working on those). So I can cut down a little on just staring at each port until I think they are close enough. I've only been removing material little by little anyway, so I wasn't making any large changes that I couldn't replicate with the others. I don't mind taking it slow though, I don't want to ruin a set of good heads, as the pickings are slim up here in the middle of nowhere

In the next few weeks, I'm planning on pulling the heads off my spare motor. I gotta see what I can do with the block and crank too. I haven't touched it since I pulled it out 2 years ago and I didn't have much time for pouring over the details at the time. So I'm hoping It still got good cylinder walls and just needs a new crank, bearings and pump.