Rover v8 stage 3 heads

[meatball]

Hi Chaps, Im on the lookout for a pair of stage 3 heads for my serp 450 chim any ideas where i should be looking other than bellhill or douglas valley. Also would the compression ratio need to be changed as im getting conflicting opinions on this.
Cheers

[GreenV8S]

Are you looking for scrap ones, or new/recon? I'd suggest you try an RV8 specialist rather than a breakers yard.

[meatball]

GreenV8S said:

Are you looking for scrap ones, or new/recon? I'd suggest you try an RV8 specialist rather than a breakers yard.

sorry should of said recons

[GreenV8S]

In that case you should try the usual RV8 specialists such as V8 Developments, RPI etc.

[meatball]

Does anyone have an ideas what sort of price range recon stage 3 heads would be?

[GreenV8S]

meatball said:

Does anyone have an ideas what sort of price range recon stage 3 heads would be?

Somewhere in the region of £800 the pair ex VAT (exchange), but "stage 3" from different suppliers doesn't always mean the same thing so check you're comparing like with like.

[boosted ls1]

Just what do you mean by a stage 3 anyway. Everybody does different things to these heads so you can't just look for a stage 3. That could be another tuner's stage 2 or stage 4. You should ask for big valve or stock valves, larger ports or tickled ports, new valve seats, bulleted guides or whatever.

Boosted.

[meatball]

boosted ls1 said:

Just what do you mean by a stage 3 anyway. Everybody does different things to these heads so you can't just look for a stage 3. That could be another tuner's stage 2 or stage 4. You should ask for big valve or stock valves, larger ports or tickled ports, new valve seats, bulleted guides or whatever.

Boosted.

The ones ive being looking at are a pair of recon v8 developments stage 3 big valves with larger ports. Could you explain to the layman what the difference between larger ports and tickled ports are?
cheers Ben

[tinker-27]

there are big valves and BIG VALVES, i know some one who can get them done well i can get a number if you want you want to make sure they are the correct cc for the motor

[boosted ls1]

Big valves tend to be a max of 43/37 although you can juggle a bit but not over a total of 80 unless you offset the guides. I know of one fast car which went to 45/35 which is an odd mix.

Boosted.

[dnb]

45/35 isn't such an odd mix - surely it's far better to sacrifice a bit of exhaust valve given the huge undersizing of the intake valves? It would be the way I went if I had the chance.

[boosted ls1]

dnb said:

45/35 isn't such an odd mix - surely it's far better to sacrifice a bit of exhaust valve given the huge undersizing of the intake valves? It would be the way I went if I had the chance.

Yep, I think on the rover it was a case of getting ports and seats to suit the big inlet valve. The car was quite nippy though and John Eales was scratching his head when he saw the dyno curve He couldn't figure out what was going on.

Boosted.

[meatball]

tinker-27 said:

there are big valves and BIG VALVES, i know some one who can get them done well i can get a number if you want you want to make sure they are the correct cc for the motor

Thanks for the offer

Ive got my heads going down to Jamie at Castle Race Engines this week to have them worked, polished and anything else he can do to give me more ooommph. I`m told they already have big valves, So i`m going to have the ports opened up to match my new 45mm inlet manifold and trumpets. Hopefully should make a bit of difference

[jamieheasman]

You won't get the benefit of any changes unless you get the fuelling sorted. A re-chip or aftermarket ecu will be needed for that. I'd go for an Emerald as they'll be able to supply a base map that'll get you most of the way there. Being able to map the ignition will make significant improvements.