Two damaged (cracked ) heads on my '68 Firebird 350 and have '79 301 heads available. Could anybody please let me know whether I'd be lucky enough for these to be usable on the '68? If not what else would be interchangable? Cheers and thanks in anticipation. Bill.
Almost any other '65-'77 Pontiac head. The 301 stuff may fit but they're junk, and they were a lower deck version of the same motor; I had a set of those off but they looked different than older Pontiac heads. You have to watch with the other heads what volume the combustion chamber is that you don't accidentally give yourself like 14:1 compression is all.
The 301 heads will bolt to the block but the intake won't fit. The 301 (and little brother Pontiac 265) were low-deck motors, a redesign of the basic Pontiac V8 to save weight and hopefully boost gas mileage. they had small ports as well, and even a turbo (offered on the '80-'81 Trans Am and Firebird Formula) couldn't get real performance out of them. Any of the other Pontiac heads from 1968-78 should be straight bolt-ons. One warning, though.... if you get a rare set of Ram Air or Super Duty 455 heads with round exhaust ports, you'll have to change your exhaust manifold or headers.
I am told the 16 heads are good. Number 16 cast into the head and used on 68 400 four barrel engines. Used those heads, ported, on the 455 in my Vega that went 208 on the salt. Fastest I ever went.
seeing that your in Australia i don't know what, if anything, is available to you as far as the junkyard/ swap meet availablity route. the 301's are defintely OUT, don't use them! like said most heads from 65 to 78 will work, you need to know what the combustion chamber cc is as the low compression heads (high cc number) will kill any power your making now. most pontiac heads are numbered on the center exhaust ports. stay away from number like 96, 6H, 7L4, 7M5, look for numbers like 46, 47,48,16, 4X, 6X, for more info join the Performance Years site, it' the biggest pontiac site on the web!
Thanks for pointing me in the right direction guys....much appreciated. I have now located "good" (?) heads for reco. Bill....
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