[Email Pizano]

I am wanting to build a GM 383 stroker motor.
I am wanting to know if vortek heads from a 95 Chevy LT1 will work as 383 stroker motors top end?
If so I am wanting to use an 95 LT1 intake system also. Will this make a good setup?
Also I have been told that vortek heads have a maximum cam lift/can'nt go with a cam that has more than a pacific lift. Cannot go above a certain cam lift. Is this true? What lift is it?

 

[DoubleVision]

LT1 heads will not work on earlier small blocks due to reverse flow cooling.
The head bolts line up, but none of the water ports between head and block do, so to make it work you`d have to weld all the coolant passages shut and reweld them, hardley worth the time or effort.
The "Vortec" heads I`m familiar with didn`t come a LT1, they came on 1996 and up 350`s in trucks. The casting number of these heads are 906 and 062.
Many aftermarket supplier carries there version of these as well.
The LT1 engines came with as far as I know, LT1 heads, but the Vortecs did get the intake port design from the LT1 heads but that`s it.
You can build a LT1 stroker, it`ll cost more bucks of course but if that`s what you want being you want to use it`s Injection as well there should be plenty of info online that will tell you how to achieve this. If you plan to use a LT1 stroker in a different vehicle, you will have to design a reverse flow cooling system.

 

[Email Pizano]

Stroker top end.

So your saying vortek heads will work on a GM 383 stroker motor.
Also, If the vortek heads come on 96 gms and up. What type of heads came on the 350s 94 and under GMs? Thought those where Vortek heads as well; All the center bolt valve cover heads. Im just trying to see what I can work with and why.

 

[DoubleVision]

GM got this confusion going way back in the 80`s when they first named the engines "Vortec" The term means tornado, and that`s correct because they have the worse flowing small block heads ever made which are the dreaded swirl port heads, swirl port = tornado one in the same. These were used on TBI engines all the way up until 1995. They have the standard 12 bolt intake pattern however the center 4 are at a different angle. The Vortec heads of 1996 and later are 8 bolt pattern and the bolts are straight up. The swirl port heads provide great low end torque but are dead by 3500, and you can`t improve it no matter how much grinding you do.
The 1996 and later vortec heads require a special vortec intake.