Cylinder Heads for L99 with Magnacharger?

[UNRIVALED SS]

My question for everyone is. What, if any, aftermarket heads are you running and what gains did you get from them. Also, feel free to include results from porting jobs as well. The following is what I`m running on my L99, just so you can help me determine the cost/benefit of such an upgrade.

Magnacharger 2300
American racing 1 7/8 inch headers
Full 3 inch exaust with high flow cats
MTI Racing stage 1 cam
CAI

The thing made 533 hp on the dyno the way it is. I`m just trying to determine what kind of gains higher flow from the heads would give it. Thanks in advance

[Supercharged SS]

Originally Posted by UNRIVALED SS

My question for everyone is. What, if any, aftermarket heads are you running and what gains did you get from them. Also, feel free to include results from porting jobs as well. The following is what I`m running on my L99, just so you can help me determine the cost/benefit of such an upgrade.

Magnacharger 2300
American racing 1 7/8 inch headers
Full 3 inch exaust with high flow cats
MTI Racing stage 1 cam
CAI

The thing made 533 hp on the dyno the way it is. I`m just trying to determine what kind of gains higher flow from the heads would give it. Thanks in advance

Spend your head money in another dept. The factory heads are great, especially with a blower. I had the chance to either change mine or p & p them.... Mine are still stock.

[papabearcamaro]

I have a set of PRC heads going on my car when my Maggie gets installed. Will I see any actual gains? Who knows,but it looks good in my mods list.

[danhr]

head flow isn't as important in a forced induction setup because, as in the title, you are "forcing" the air into the cylinder, so to speak, you aren't relying on vacuum. Unless you are looking to put out ~800+ rwhp, money is better spent elsewhere.

if you want to spend the money on horsepower, I'd look into getting a meth system put on, and probably going to a smaller pulley (going by your numbers, i'm assuming you are still on the stock 3.6 pulley).

talk to the boys over at the tatershack. They are very close friends of mine (I used to be stationed at fort campbell). A lot of the guys are current or ex military and there are quite a few that are in clarksville. That and they aren't even a shop... just a bunch of guys that get together and work on cars.

[Scott@Bjorn3D]

At the point you are at I would look for wider back wheels and gearing to get you out of the hole faster. Janetty Racing makes an entire geared rearend with the one wheel spin problem fixed on high horse power applications. You would just send in your old rearend to get the core charge back when done.

[LS7 427]

Just to answer the Op's question, for comparison here are my numbers.

Magnacharger 2300, 3.6" pulley, 7 lbs. boost
Stainlessworks 1 7/8 inch headers
Full 3 inch exaust with high flow cats
Lingenfelter GT-9 Cam
Roto-Fab CAI
Lingenfelter LS3 Castings, fully CNC'd, all ports hand sand rolled for final clean up, upgraded Ferrara dual valve springs, and titanium retainers

Dyno'd at 590 RWHP and 495 ft/lb torque.

[Turbo99]

Op...who's tuning are you running?

[UNRIVALED SS]

I had MTI Racing do the tuning for the engine and trans. The service was great! I have been running the car like this for about a year, perhaps there have been some improvements made in the mysterious world of tuning in the past 12 months. You all pretty much seem to be making a little more power than me. I guess I better get to work waking this thing up. Thanks for all the info so far. This is a great place to learn from all of you out there like me that always want to go a little bit faster.

[UNRIVALED SS]

Wow, 590 is a substantial gain in power over what I`m making. I have looked at the Linginfelter products and the heads look like a really good deal for the money as well. I was surprised to see that they did not seem to be one of the more pricey products out there. The combination you`re running is very similar to mine with the exception of the cam and heads. I looked at the cam specs and I`m actually running more duration on the intake side. I may also consider a cam swap considering the numbers you have posted. One thing is for sure, making 60 more hp is a tempting proposition that I may not be able to turn down.

[SRT10KLLR]

Once some aftermarket heads come out they will be good for the pushing it with a blower or turbo due to the thicker deck and better flowing.

[LS7 427]

Originally Posted by UNRIVALED SS

Wow, 590 is a substantial gain in power over what I`m making. I have looked at the Linginfelter products and the heads look like a really good deal for the money as well. I was surprised to see that they did not seem to be one of the more pricey products out there. The combination you`re running is very similar to mine with the exception of the cam and heads. I looked at the cam specs and I`m actually running more duration on the intake side. I may also consider a cam swap considering the numbers you have posted. One thing is for sure, making 60 more hp is a tempting proposition that I may not be able to turn down.

Here's the dyno chart to support the numbers I quoted earlier.
.

[calbert1999]

Originally Posted by UNRIVALED SS

My question for everyone is. What, if any, aftermarket heads are you running and what gains did you get from them. Also, feel free to include results from porting jobs as well. The following is what I`m running on my L99, just so you can help me determine the cost/benefit of such an upgrade.

Magnacharger 2300
American racing 1 7/8 inch headers
Full 3 inch exaust with high flow cats
MTI Racing stage 1 cam
CAI

The thing made 533 hp on the dyno the way it is. I`m just trying to determine what kind of gains higher flow from the heads would give it. Thanks in advance

The expense of porting the intake and either purchasing new heads or having the OEM ported is a waste of money and time for very little gain. You won't be able to benefit much from the limited increase in air flow (right now), because you can't flow more boost into your engine (safely) on a stock bottom end.

If you're really serious about putting down some real HP's, talk to your performance installer about stroking the engine to 416ci or 427ci, a new crankshaft and other forged internals. This will make the parts inside the block much stronger, and reduce the compression ratio so you can have more boosted airflow and push that TVS2300 to it's limits. That should take you somewhere into 800+hp's.

After I have the ProCharger system installed, my next mod (next spring) will be to have the engine stroked so I can really see what the ProChargers can do.

Originally Posted by CAMROSS

Just to answer the Op's question, for comparison here are my numbers.

Magnacharger 2300, 3.6" pulley, 7 lbs. boost
Stainlessworks 1 7/8 inch headers
Full 3 inch exaust with high flow cats
Lingenfelter GT-9 Cam
Roto-Fab CAI
Lingenfelter LS3 Castings, fully CNC'd, all ports hand sand rolled for final clean up, upgraded Ferrara dual valve springs, and titanium retainers

Dyno'd at 590 RWHP and 495 ft/lb torque.

You're making nice #'s, but probably no real gain at all from porting the heads / intake unless you can increase the boost. And, that wouldn't be a good idea on a stock bottom end and internals.

[Slowhawk]

I would say pull the heads,change the valves to stainless.Mill the heads .030, get rid of DOD/AFM ect and put them back on with ARP studs.

The raised compression will help alot.

[UNRIVALED SS]

WOW, man that is an awesome Hot Rod !!! Thanks for all the info sharing. It`s obvious that the numbers don`t lie. The different specs on your cam could be attributed to some of the HP difference but, I would say that awesome port work is problymore likely to credit. You have got me on the path to some real research. Again thanks for all the info and that is really a great ride you have built there.