Hey guys, as you all know, the holidays are coming and I've been saving up for some nice parts. This includes cams. Thing is, before I get cams (and springs and retainers) I was wondering if there is anything else to consider? Should I get head work done before? Or can I take the bite and go ahead and get the cams? My main confusion here is the order of which I should go with when it comes to mods. Short term goal is to hopefully get 400 whp. Long term is the 500-600 area. If you guys need any additional info, please let me know and thank you

You can throw some 272's in on a stock head, but you should just build the head when you get cams. That way you're only taking it apart once.

Personally I like the FP2's. They don't require you to degree the cams with adjustable cam gears.

I plan on getting the DKS2 regrinds (272/272 combination) and was thinking of Kiggly beehive springs and retainers thus far. But, what kind of work would be needed when doing the head? I want to get a round figure on pricing so I know what to prepare for. As I do not know how much head work is gonna cost me. And I'm sure it all depends on what I want/need done.

Thanks for your input

http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/cylinder-head-short-block/420045-how-have-4g63-head-rebuilt.html

Prices vary from place to place, location to location. What you want to do is make a list of all the work needed, above link should help you. Find a machine shop that can do all that work, tell them you want that work done, list it if need be to them. Be specific as you can. Now I say this because not every machine shops has the ability to do some/part of the work. If its a supporting vendor, they should know how to take car of your DSM head for you.

Getting Kiggly will be worth the money, if you plan to upgrade at all in the future. The last thing you want to do is buy springs, have them installed then need to swap them again when you upgrade cams.

I actually just looked over that thread about 20 minutes ago and that is what made me post this . I guess what I mean is, if I do get this sort of work done, what is the performance work that can be done to my head? I see the list that states thing such as pressure test for cracks, valve job, surface, and guide work. But then it says performance work if wanting any. Any examples?

Thanks, that is precisely why I went with Kiggly. Although, I was wondering if anyone happened to know anything about the Bee MAD kit from FFWD?

ishnish said:

I actually just looked over that thread about 20 minutes ago and that is what made me post this . I guess what I mean is, if I do get this sort of work done, what is the performance work that can be done to my head? I see the list that states thing such as pressure test for cracks, valve job, surface, and guide work. But then it says performance work if wanting any. Any examples?

Thanks, that is precisely why I went with Kiggly. Although, I was wondering if anyone happened to know anything about the Bee MAD kit from FFWD?

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Stock heads without performance have seen huge, Tim Zimmer made over 800 with a unported stock head, I dont think it was with stock internals though.

Porting properly will always help with airflow, if you go with oversizled valves then you will need to have the bowls blended.
this could help you also:
http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/new...ze-guides-oversized-valves.html#post152683074

From what I have read and heard, most beehive springs are PAC alloy and all made in the same location. They are pretty much all the same with some tweeks, different seats, different reatainers.

Well that is great to know. I could basically just get some head work done to "like new" again instead of the performance stuff. I'm not looking for 800 hp so I guess the porting is unnecessary.

Would it be a good idea to go with oversized valves? Since it messes with valvetrain geometry that is. Wait, do you ONLY have sunk valves when you get guides replaced? It says I can just replace the seats to eliminate the issue. I just wanna know what's cost effective here.

Thanks for the info on the springs btw, that's good to know.

The cams are usually the last thing we spec out for an engine. Every head is cast slightly different, as is every port job so we flow test the head on a Superflow SF100 and use those results to select a set of cams that is going to work the best with THAT head. Because of what we've found on the flowbench pretty much all the cams we do now are custom grinds from Comp which allows us to maximize the efficiency (and power) potential of the head.

ishnish said:

Well that is great to know. I could basically just get some head work done to "like new" again instead of the performance stuff. I'm not looking for 800 hp so I guess the porting is unnecessary.

Would it be a good idea to go with oversized valves? Since it messes with valvetrain geometry that is. Wait, do you ONLY have sunk valves when you get guides replaced? It says I can just replace the seats to eliminate the issue. I just wanna know what's cost effective here.

Thanks for the info on the springs btw, that's good to know.

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Oversized valves are not necessary.If I had to do it again I would not have bothered. There are plenty of people making 500whp without oversized valves.

ceedawg said:

Oversized valves are not necessary.If I had to do it again I would not have bothered. There are plenty of people making 500whp without oversized valves.

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Oversized valves are required when guide work is performed. Once the stock guides are removed or sleeved, the valve stem is located in a different spot. In order to re-establish concentricity the seat has to be machined. This "sinks" a stock sized valve so an oversized one is used in its place to maintain proper geometry. THere is a small increase in flow but not significant enough to consider installing bigger valves by themselves.

JAm is right, just installing OS valves will have little gain, unles some bowl work is done. If you have the same size throat of the STD valve then install the OS valves, it will flow close to the same as the STD.

I figured since I don't really even need to get the OS valves, then I shouldn't really have to bother. Being that a lot of guys are making over 500 hp without that kind of work done that's great news for me. Definitely would save me some money for the holidays.

So what has been said in this thread performance wise about a "head" applies equally to both 1g and 2g heads? IIRC Tim Zimmer made those numbers on a 1g head. Which one does the OP have in his car? It is not specified in the profile so 2g I assume? Are both pretty close flowwise if unported and in good general condition?

I have a 2g head. And I'm pretty sure that there might be quite some differences with the heads between a 1g and a 2g. From what I can remember, I recall many tuners saying the preferred setup is a 6 bolt block with a 7 bolt head. So maybe the 7 bolt head might be better?

Typically DSMers don't spend alot on head work. Now we all know how cheap DSMers are, so thats probably part of the reason but the other portion is compared to alot of other mods, the gains you see from "performance" head work will be much less gains vs their cost.

For 300-400whp, you need nothing more then a stock head (of course one thats in good condition) & then typically cams (& spring/retainer depending on the cams you select). The majority of guys will say the same is require for a 500-600hp goal as well.

No matter what the cam, none of them are "drop in" either. Some are much better then others, but they should all be degree'd to your setup if you want the cams to perform the way they were intended.