Head to rusty or not? VP 5.7

[Ricky_rich]

I recently traded me a couple of restored GM 350 heads. 14096217
Now it turned out that one of the heads are pretty rusty in the water canals. If I use a screwdriver I can scrape of about 1 mm of rusty iron. The guy who restored the head say it’s ok, have been pressure tested. But I have a bad feeling that I will have water leaking into the engine soon. I will only use the boat in a lake, so no salt water but anyway…
Here are some pictures, hard for you to get a good view, but give it a shoot. Picture 5,6 and 7 are compared with my other good head.

 

[alldodge]

This head looks like it was bead blasted and maybe sanded. I wouldn't use the heads until they were acid cleaned and rebuilt

 

[Grub54891]

I agree with alldodge, they need to be repaired correctly. Nothing worse than having a failure out on the lake, Should have had your other ones re-done, probably in better shape than those.

 

[Scott Danforth]

14096217...55-86...350..........Crate motor, 285hp/300hp, 64cc chambers, 72' or 90' center intake manifold bolt angles
I would go with vortec vs using those heads. there is pitting on the valves, and the combustion chambers are not conducive to making power.

a new set of vortec heads is $750, used under $400

 

[Lou C]

You'd really want a good machinist to look at those. The cooling ports look eroded from raw water cooling and may not seal well against the head gasket. That was one of the reasons why I replaced the heads from my engine when I took it apart after the HGs blew. The machinist felt that between the cracks (could have been fixed) and the erosion of the cooling ports, it made more sense to get a good set of re man heads.

 

[Ricky_rich]

I noticed one other thing when handling the heads. The rusty one felt lighter so I‘ll put them on the scale. And guess what, the one with rust is 4.4lb lighter!!! I’ll guess I won’t use this one and be stranded with the family on a sunny day.
Switch to Vortec would be good I guess, but then I’ll have to change intake and carburetor as well, so a bit too expensive for me at the moment.

 

[Scott Danforth]

just the intake. plenty of $50 cast iron intakes out there. aluminum dual alloy intakes are about $300

 

[Ricky_rich]

I have managed to get another head instead of this rusty one. So now I have two decent heads that will do the job. I live all the way over in Sweden, and the prices for these parts are higher over here. So no Vortec convertion in my budget.
One other thing I noticed is that the holes in the head gasket for cooling water are very small. Both my old and new gasket looks pretty much the same. Why is this, don’t you want to have a good water flow through the head?

 

[alldodge]

This is to have the water flow all over more evenly. If they were all full open, some cylinders would get more flow then the others because water flows the path of least resistance. Creating resistance all over, keeps fresh water circulating correctly.

Same thing happens with exhaust risers. The risers do not have an equal restriction (resistance) so when idling one side will get more water then the other. This is not enough to cause an issue, but does make one side a tad hotter.

 

[Lou C]

Those are exactly like the OE head gaskets I took out of my 4.3 when I replaced the heads and gaskets last summer, so they should be fine. Just make sure that the threads on the head bolts are clean and not rusty and clean out the threads in the block with a thread chaser, and compressed air. They need to be really clean to get accurate torque readings. Before you install your heads make sure each head bolt threads all the way in by hand. If not you got more cleaning to do....

Also, because some of the bolts thread into cooling passages, you need to use gasket sealer on the threads, you can use Merc Perfect Seal, OMC/Evinrude gasket sealer or if those can't be found, Permatex Aviation gasket sealer. I replaced my head bolts due to the amount of rust and it took me quite a while to clean out all the head bolt threads in the block. Check your sealing surfaces too, they need to be flat within .003" or less both the block and head....

 

[Scott Danforth]

I have sold many parts to people in sweden, so dont say anything is out of your budget. Granted shipping is a bit, however no different than shipping to Canada or the UK or Australia.

AllDodge and Lou have you covered on the steam hole question

 

[Ricky_rich]

Thanks for clearing up my thoughts about the head gasket.

If I would do a Vortec conversion. What parts would need to be switched, if we can list them.
Heads of course
Intake
In my case carburetor, since I have a two barrel.
What about cam shaft, lifters, push rods and valve rockers?
Exhaust manifolds, would I be able to use the old ones?

 

[Lou C]

Intake is different
Exhaust manifolds are the same, I don't think they changed the exhaust ports on the Vortec heads
You will need a carb with an electric choke because there is no exhaust crossover on the Vortec heads
As far as the cam/valve train, is this a roller lifter engine? There were some other changes to the valve train, such as switching from an adjustable to non adjustable valve train. I'm not sure when this happened and it may depend on which heads you actually wind up using. You have to do more research about the changes that occurred and casting #s.....