Anyone ever try Rover heads on a 300? Is it possible? Are they aluminum? Do the later heads (I suppose post mid-eighties) have fast burn combustion chambers? Thanks in advance.
I have heard that some people have put 300 heads on 215/Rovers - but I haven't seen one in person or know the details of the swap. So I suppose a Rover head could be fitted to a 300. I kind of suspect there may be intake manifold issues, but ???.
The best aluminum heads for a 300 you can get for less than $3500 are '64 Buick aluminum 300 heads. Get them ported and big valved, and they will out-flow any ported and valved Rover head. Since they are aluminum, you can run higher compresion than 300/340 iron heads. The '64 300 heads have 54cc combustion chamber. All Rover heads are aluminum, and have a 36-37cc combustion chamber, up until about '93-'94, when the chamber was shrunk down to 28-29cc due to a change from tin to composite gaskets. The pre- '76 Rover heads suck, they are identical to the 215 heads (which suck). 1976 - 1987 heads are the Rover SD1 heads, they are a little tiny bit better than the 215 head, slightly better combustion chamber and a "little bit" of an improvement in the exhaust runner. Rover EFI heads were called Vitesse heads. You can tell these heads by the injector clearance notch at the top of the intake runner. Otherwise, these are identical to SD1 heads, but with great valves. The Vitesse valves are 30 deg. cut back and waisted from the factory. Some of the later Vitesse heads had a 29cc combustion chamber (not many, but some) so, cc them to be sure. In 1994 the heads finally got decent ports (STILL not as good as a '64 300) and went back to chunky valves, saving about two bucks per head in production cost, and wiping out any gains from the better ports. All these heads are 29cc combustion chamber. All Rover heads will bolt up to the 300 block, just ignore the extra four bolt holes on most of the heads, they don't do anything anyway, even on the 215. The aluminum 300 intake will fit all Rover heads, with some port size mismatch. 1964 Buick 300 aluminum heads and intake are rare, but they aren't THAT rare. There are sets on Ebay every couple of weeks. The heads generally go for about $250-350 for a pair, 4bbl intakes about $100-150. Check the water passages on the head face for corrosion, if there is anything more than very, very minor corrosion, skip them and wait for the next set. Get them ported an valved by somebody who has done a lot of buick 215 and 300 heads before, if the porting guy isn't familiar with these heads, he'll hit water for sure. Well prepared '64 300 heads can flow enough air for around 350-360 naturally aspirated bhp under ideal circumstances. Until somebody casts something better. Good Luck. Rick(wrench)
Great Info Rick!! Wow, thanks Rick!....More questions.... How do ported '64 heads compare with ported/stock iron '65-66 heads? Is it worth converting to the 64's? Do any of the Rovers use a better intake manifold? You mentioned fuel injection ...:Brow: :Brow: BTW, I'm using an alum '64 intake with opened up ports on my '66 low compression (2bbl) 300...
fuel injection ? I have been kicking around the idea of using the land rover F.I. setup for a while but i don't know enogh about it to go looking for parts thanks Adam
porting ? Does anybody have the name or number that can do the port work and big vavle conversion thanks Adam
? I have a v8-300 that it came with the car when i bought it, how do i know what type of heads i have, is there an easy way to find out? thanks :TU:
Re: ? If a magnet sticks to them they are iron heads. If the magnet doesn't stick, they are aluminum heads. Or, scrape off the crud in a corner and see if they are silver (alum) or dk grey (iron).
What about using the larger capacity Rover heads? The 215 V8 (3.5 litre) also came as a 3.9 litre, 4.0 litre (basically the 3.9 but cross bolted mains) and a 4.6 litre (about 290 cubic inches) Theres a selection of different EFI set ups used over the years. I know theres a few people over here running the Rover in various sizes with Jenvey throttle body EFI and Emerald ECUs. Most people tuning the Rover V8 here junk the EFI if fitted and go for an Edelbrock intake and Weber 500 4 barrel. There is also a company called Wildcat Engineering who cast up new heads for the Rover. They also do stroker cranks out to 6.0 litres (about 380 cubic inches). Their heads are well trick! IIRC they require use of a fabricated intake or Wildcat's own intake as the intake ports are completely different size / location to the stock item. Last time I saw I think they were about 4000 GBP a pair (near $6000 US) Rumour suggests that the TVR heads are better than stock Rover items. I don't know if this is true. These were fitted to pretty much all TVR sports cars using the Rover V8 from the early 90s to a couple of years back when TVR started making thier own motors. IIRC the TVR Tuscan race car still uses the Rover V8 I noticed a while back the whole assembly line Land Rover use to make the engines is up for sale. Make Offer! Check out www.rpiv8.com - specialist tuners of the Rover V8 over here. they do export and might have something usefull for the 300.
The iron heads do have bigger ports, if I recall, but then you can run higher compression with the aluminum heads. Even trade-off? Probably not, since you can have the iron heads ported just as easily, but the iron heads weigh... gotta be at least 45 lbs each? The aluminum heads are less than 20 lbs each. I haven't dealt with the iron heads much, as putting iron heads on an aluminum block seems, well, dumb (to me, anyway). I put my motors (Rovers in my case, not 300s) into really light cars (2000 - 2200 lbs). 50-100lbs. does make a difference. Rover made a few different EFI intakes, but they're too narrow to fit on a 300 block without spacers. I'd use something like a holley throttle body system on the 4bbl alum 300 intake. There isn't much difference in power levels between port injection an TBI. Port injection just looks different. You get good fuel control either way, that's what is important. The TVRs mostly used the Vitesse EFI heads. They got most of their power increases from cam and intake changes. The last few years that used Rover based engines, they were stroking the motors out to five + liters, still with the Vitesse EFI heads. Some of the twin plenum EFI intakes looked pretty cool. Had to have been some port work done, but I'm not certain. Since they weren't that big a company, they could do work on individual cars and engines. I doubt there are two Rover engined TVRs out there that are identical. The large capacity heads (4.0/4.6l) had slightly larger ports than the Vitesse heads, but a worse valve design. They were used in a big heavy truck, remember, not a sports car. Low end torque was THE goal, to get that 5000lb. pig off the line ahead of the Yugos. These are the 29cc heads. They are pretty much useless for a 300 with that small a combustion chamber. To have any useable quench (.040-.045") you'd need a piston with a 35cc dish! That'll get you down to 10/1 compression. A '64 300 head is still better, and much cheaper. I've been quoted $3000+ US dollars for a pair of Wildcat Rover heads a year or so ago, and then there's shipping. If they are up to $6000 US dollars, hell, I bet I could prototype and cast my own for not much more than that! I haven't seen these heads in person, and others on this forum have talked about porosity issues. It would be pretty tough to exchange them for me, since they come from overseas. They look to be a Buick GN V6 stage II type head with the extra cylinder cast back on. That's what I'd do, anyway. Save a ton on R&D. Valves on the centerline, looks like good ports from the pics I've seen, but who knows the flow numbers. I'd still like to see that. Rick(wrench)
Preface: My Rover engines use: Cross boltged block with main bearing saddles cut appx. .022 for Buick 300 main bearings, and flange type cylinder sleeves Australian Leyland 3.500 stroke P76 crank Bore for 305 Chevy pistons, 3.736 bore, Ros forged postons Scat H-beem small block, small journal Chevy rods, narrowed Double row timing chain, Crower cam My own design timing cover with modified oil pump, shaft support and thrust face/seal areas This makes 309 cu/in (5.2 litre) all aluminum short block. I use 300 aluminum heads, with the last year large sized Corvair valves, hard interlocking valve seats, crower springs and retainers, and Corvair keepers, heads are ported as far as possible. I also use Rover domestic 3 piece intake manifold EFI, with overbored Z28 2 blade throttle body and Mustang 19 lb/hr nozzles. All this, and the engine still weighs less than 340 lbs. Now, what is gaining popularity in Europe on aluminum Rover engines, all sizes, and CAST IRON 300/340 and some 350 heads. The people there say the oprt sizes make significant improvement over any and all aluminum production Rover heads and even those scant few aluminum 300 heads that have ended up there. Most there modify an Edelbrock aluminum manifold, welding and porting to match the cast iron inlet ports. They also make their own aluminum valley cover/intake gasket "tub". Another claim is that the cast iron heads help with block and gasket stability/distortion/sealing issues. Wildcat stuff is top notch stuff, but, unless you really want a $25,000.00 Rover engine that uses lots of Chevy parts inside it, you can do a fairly close job of it with 300 aluminum heads, sleeves and a nice stroker crank. If the proper rods/pistons are selected, a stock 4.6 Rover crank can be offset ground .190 to produce a crank with 3.390 stroke, just .010 short of a 300 Buick crank, and it drops right back in on stock mains. So, there are only two realistic/affordable choices for a Rover/Buick aluminum block, either stock aluminum Buick 300 heads ported and larger valves, or cast iron 300 and intake. Either one will require different pistons for the smaller engines to maintain useable compression ratios.
That's the very reason I drool at the prospect of aluminum 350 heads. Who'd have thought a 40 year old head would still be the best head available for ANY engine. Where did you track down the P76 cranks!?!? Rick(wrench)
Australia. The aluminum 300 heads are far from optimum, in fact, even highly modified, they still stink as a performance head. But then...whom will step up and build/offer a good 350 aluminum head? Nobody I've seen lately, they need a clean sheet of paper to do it right, not just made from that magic 8 letter word everybody goes nuts over, "aluminum", and archaic designs that just don't work anymore.
i agree i thought he 350 heads used a diffrent int/ext configuration which is reversed from that of the rover and buick engines 215, 300, 340 thanks Adam
Use aftermarket Edelbrock manifold, cut side faces to correct size, make new valley pan/gasket from .062 aluminum sheet, works/seals/fits. 350 head on small bore 215 engines is not the way to go, but, if the bore size is made at the 3.736 305 Chevy size, not much problem. Smaller bore gets in the way of the valves. 300/340 heads on 215, still a compromise, needs special pistons, but...stabiliby in the block and head gasket are greatly increased over alum/alum. Case in point, anybody ever see a head gasket blow out of a Vega, never happened. What did was, the aluminum bores went long before they had head gasket issues, reason, the block was aluminum, but the head on any and all 4 cylinder Vega engines was cast iron.
So you can run the 350 heads on a 300 or 340 wow thats cool i have a question so how much wider is a 350's intake is it close enough to be able to mill down. thanks Adam
Yeah, I have the same question... Esp. in regard to aftermarket intakes with the 350 heads on a 340... Funny, there seems to be two groups of peope in this thread - those wanting to run iron heads on a 215 and those wanting to run ali/350/other heads on a 300/340... I think I'm more confused than when I started!
You cannot use a 350 head on a 300, without considerable modification. The 350 head has intake/exhaust valves in opposite placement from the 300, also 350 has tall narrow intake ports, after 1970 they oiled through the pushrod instead of the head. Possibly, using a 350 camshaft, getting the pushrod length and valvetrain correct, then you start fabricating an intake, whew! Also, the 350 has an open combustion chamber, the 300 a closed, I prefer a closed (a quicker burn). I want to look into the design of a late model Rover combustion chamber, anyone have any pictures.
