Indy LA-x heads

jmwuva05 said
So I'm continuing to mull over engine choices. As I stated before I have a 1984 360 black that is presently getting checked out at the machine shop. Project car be a 1972 duster originally auto going to be 4spd when done and I picked up a nice set of pedals on here this am.. My original intention was a 408 stroker with edelbrock heads and TTI or Doug's full length headers. As I have been looking through old books and pictures I am starting to think a more stealth period looking engine might be more of an interest as my car will be purely street.. I know hughes has repros of the 340 manifolds which would look the part and have read on here there might be some clearance issues with the edelbrock heads and thise manifolds. I have been looking at the indy LA-x heads now and they seem very capable and was wondering what some of you veteran members thought of them? My original heads are smog heads so they have the holes in them and I didn't even bother to take them to the machine shop.

Neither the LA-X nor the Edelbrock heads look original. The Eddy heads do stick out past the block more than the LA-X's do. However, paint either set orange (or whatever your engine color is) and they both are pretty stealth, although of course anyone really familiar with all this will be able to spot them easily enough.

I did run 340 exhaust manifolds with the Edelbrock heads in my 65 Barracuda for several years. I didn't know they weren't supposed to fit, but I did find out that I had to grind on the driver's side head a bit for clearance. Switched to TTI headers couple of years ago.

Edelbrock heads on my 65 Barracuda:

LA-X heads that I put on the 360 in my 67 Barracuda:

One intake valve stuck open in the LA-X heads within 50 miles of installing them. See arrow, cylinder 7 below. The valve head bent, but, amazingly, the (low compression) piston was OK, as was the valve seat. Replaced the valve, honed the guide a bit and have run it w/o problem since.