Ok so as some of you know the GF hydrolocked my car . With that said I decided to take the head off the car. Now that the head is off I sent it out to John at hytech and he's going to do some work on it. I will recieve an email on everything hes doing on thursday once he recieves it. My question to you guys is:
What can I do now that the heads off the car? The entire valvetrain is being upgraded along with some head work. I read that ARP headstuds are a big . I guess letting you know my plans would really help your opinions.
Im set on supercharing the car. Really loving the vortech but the new SOS kit is looking very nice. Only problem is I wont be doing this for a good year. Do you recommend sending the intake manifold out to alaniz, what about the TB? I was looking at the SOS TB service. Only problem with the Intake Manifold is Alaniz is basically impossible to get a hold of. So your advice/opinions would greatly be appreciated.

 

keep the stock cams. i suppose you could do valvesprings and retainers but from what i have read cams are not worth the extra money. i havent heard much of a good response on doing oversized valves either.

ARP studs are very finicky. some people swear by them, others dont.

after reading enough horror stories, i am in the middle. i dont think i'll run these in my s2k, but if i ever do another DSM they'll be the FIRST thing i'd do.

centrifugal kits are nice but for the money you'd pay for a brand new one i would say look into something else, as you may not be so happy with your dollar to hp ratio in the end. i would either grab a nice clean used kit (for half the price!) or consider mildly turboing your car. but its all up to you in the end - so start doing your homework!

either way you should do a thicker headgasket while everything is apart. most supercharger guys run 2mm HG's (which i think puts you up to like 14-16psi safely) and the turbo guys run the 3mm's (inline pro estimates anything over ~22psi to be pushing the limits). its certainly better to run the thinner gasket if you're supercharging since you wont need the headroom and you'll want the extra compression for down low in the power band.

best of luck!

 

don't send anything to Alainz. Have you read anything about this guy and how long he takes?

 

dude I cant even get ahold of the guy.... I wanted to send my manifold to him but cant get in touch with the guy. Then again I read that the stock manifold can flow up to 600hp. I'm not planning on getting that hard core so I dont think sending it out would be necessary. I already sent the head out for head work along with new valve,springs,retainers and a couple of other things. Im stuck on the head gasket. Do I get a thicker one or stick with stock. I wont be getting the supercharger for about a year and would hate to drive around with a thick head gasket lowering my compression.

 

send it to laskey at get it fully built

GL man...

 

I wish I had the funds because the block would be on a pallet and out tomorrow but thats not the case.

 

The only thing I would definitely do is to upgrade your retainers to AP2 retainers. That'll give you a little overrev protection in case you need it someday. You could do valvesprings, too, but I wouldn't consider it a necessity.

Other than that, it's all about how much money you want to spend and how much faith you have in the guy doing the work. If you're planning to SC, you should look at Sideways' build for guidance. I believe he has an Alaniz head with bigger exhaust valves, some CC re-shaping and maybe some other stuff done to his head. If you already have the header and intake mani you want to use, you could have everything port-matched while it's apart.

Other than that... I dunno.