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Very nice! Nice touch indexing the Phillip screws in the bases! Ha!

67RTBlue Wrote:Very nice! Nice touch indexing the Phillip screws in the bases! Ha!

You have a sharp eye my friend you know it's all about the detail.

They look good! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you too!!

I took the Challenger for a nice 30 mile ride on Christmas eve! It was in the mid 50's and sunny. If someone would have told me that the weather will be this in December I would have not believed it. I have never driven one of my cars past mid November because of the snow & salt on the road.

I installed the floor mats I got for Christmas in the convertible!

I pulled the 452 heads off the 440 after doing a cylinder leak down test. 85% leak on #1 !! Found the #1 exhaust valve starting to burn. I'll start with the porting templates before I bring the heads in for guides & a valve job. Is it worth the expense to install the larger valves?

I'd look at the cost to do the larger valves vs what the aftermarket (Eddy, Trick Flow, CPW, etc) heads cost. Sometimes it can be a wash.

Thought 452s came with good valve size .

67r/t4speeder Wrote:Thought 452s came with good valve size .

The 452's have the same valve size as most big blocks. 1.75 exh , 2.08 intake.
My Road Runner had 1.81 & 2.14 with 915 heads. By the seat of the pants it felt much stronger than the challenger. But then again it was running on all the cylinders.
New valves with retainers should cost around $300 plus the valve job and I have a feeling I'm going to need exhaust seats installed. The cost might be a wash. I'll get the estimate on the heads before I do any thing. New stealth heads are around $1000. I haven't checked on other heads yet.

Joe mama Wrote:The 452's have the same valve size as most big blocks. 1.75 exh , 2.08 intake.
My Road Runner had 1.81 & 2.14 with 915 heads. By the seat of the pants it felt much stronger than the challenger. But then again it was running on all the cylinders.
New valves with retainers should cost around $300 plus the valve job and I have a feeling I'm going to need exhaust seats installed. The cost might be a wash. I'll get the estimate on the heads before I do any thing. New stealth heads are around $1000. I haven't checked on other heads yet.

Joe,

Before you do any work to the heads, you may want to check the chamber volume on the 452's. I've got 4 452 castings under my bench that have varying chamber sizes on them due to core shift. 2 of them the previous owner found out about after having them ported, new guides, larger valves, and seats. Looks like they were milling the heads to get them to a certain size and noticed the outer chambers were a little bit smaller than the inners (up to 8cc difference).