Edelbrock head alternatives?

Thanks for all the info so far. As far as the cars usage, just street. I have no intention of breaking stuff at the dragstrip, although that would be a dream. Here's some info on the car so far. Dana 60 rear end with 3.55 posi. KB 243 pistons, .030 over. Forged crank. 4 speed. That's where I'm at so far. I'm not trying to squeeze every last tenth out of the car, just mostly wanna scare some women and children at the cruise night scene...[/QUOTE]

Trying what you have sounds like a good option. But it looks like you are going to be limited to lower speed operations (cruise night) so it speaks to torque so keep your compression ratios up and don't go too wild on cam, since you won't need to wind it out too far. You got a good start on that with the piston selection. Now you need to match the cylinder head chambers and head gaskets to those pistons to get up around 9.5-10:1 Static CR. Then, if you ever go with a bigger cam later, you will have enough SCR so that won't drop the dynamic CR (DCR) too low and kill the low RPM torque.

My advice on the heads is to go with the most flow that you can afford. It'll make the engine run stronger in mid range and up top regardless of the cam. The IMM RHS heads are obviously quite good. But they are going to give you an SCR of almost 10.5:1 with your pistons and a .051" standard Felpro 8553 PT head gasket, and an iron head at that SCR is not easy to run without detonation 'challenges' for a street sized cam. (But it CAN be done with care; you have to limit the ignition timing advance and not go with the standard advice.) That kinda points to the Edelbrocks 60179's with milled chambers as being a bit better with your pistons and application; the SCR will be down around 10.1:1 and the aluminum will offer better detonation resistance to boot. So that choice IMHO is being driven a lot by your use, the moderate cam size it calls for, and the pistons you have.

If you are limited on budget for heads, then mill the heads you have about .020" to get the cambers to the 70 cc range, and put 'em on with a 8553 PT head gasket. SCR will be in the high 9's and DCR will be in the high 7's with a 268/274 cam. That ought to be perky on the street, have a wide RPM range (good street/cruise driveability), and be quite easily tunable to avoid detonation issues.