I'm reworing my cast iron heads and want to know if I should mill my heads down. The bottom end will be stock, with the exception of the cam (ZZ4?). If so, how much and are there any areas to be concerned about?

Lates,
JD

 

Stock L98 heads? Depends on what heads your using, but in general I don't like milling the heads, and if they are the stock L98 heads they already have 64cc chambers. Just use a thinner head gasket if you want to bump compression. Stock compression on your car is already a bit above 9:1 anyway, a simple gasket change will put you close to 10:1. I think the stock gasket is .051 thickness compressed. Go to one with .025 and you'll get half a point. They even make a gasket that goes to .015 which will give you around 7/10's of a point of a compression.

 

Yes , I will retain the stock heads. By raising compression via a thinner head gasket, what are the advantages/ disadvantages? Any type of HP gain?

JD

 

Same as any time you raise the compression, you'll get more torque and hp, as well as more efficiency. Just cheaper, since you have to buy new head gaskets anyway, and now you don't have to pay a machine shop to mill the heads, or mill the intake to match, or thin out your head decks, not that thats a huge problem, but I like all the strength I can get.

 

Thanks, re-working the heads is an interem fix for this anemic motor. I'm already pricing out a stroker short block for later this year. I'm judt trying to push the factory combo to the max before I ditch it altogether.

JD