340 X heads advice

crackedback said

Typical thread for what should I do for cylinder heads. If you can do the work on your own stuff, have at it. If you need to go to a shop and have the guides, surface, tank, valve job done along with buying valvetrain/seals, expect to have $700ish in that before you get to the cost of the heads. JMO, that's a lot of money in a stock set of heads.

Find a discount code and some of the aluminum variant are really not that much more than a set of done iron heads.

Pick your parts, pay your money

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So true, I have went both ways.
The only way that I will even thinking about iron head valve job is if they are a complete head to start with.
I actually am using iron “J” heads on my current build, but I had them and picked them up cheap in a parts lot buy out.
To go looking for a set, I would just grab some newer cast or aluminum head and be done with it. Old heads are a gamble, I have a few sets of cracked to hell iron heads, ironic thing is every cracked LA head I have, had been previously ported.
I have a set of “u” heads that were cracked on 7 of 8 cylinders. Most had multiple cracks on each cylinder.