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Build Your Own Heads Kits
Pontiac V8 Build Your Own Heads Kits
Build Them Yourself, Get the Right Parts — Build Your Own Heads Kits for Pontiac V8s
Head Builder Kits are for the guy doing his own head assembly, or handing the job to a local shop. Butler supplies the parts that have to be matched to each other and to your camshaft, so nothing arrives with the wrong install height or a spring that will not live behind the cam you picked.
Kits come two ways: with Edelbrock or Speedmaster castings already machined in Butler's head shop, or as a parts-only kit for the good castings you already own, aluminum or cast iron. Everything inside is chosen against your cam specs rather than pulled from a generic list.
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More About Build Your Own Heads Kits
1. With Castings, or Use Your Own
The first fork is whether you need metal or only the parts that go in it.
| With Edelbrock castings | Aluminum D-port or round port, in 72cc or 87cc. The 72cc D-port and 72cc round port kits use 87cc castings machined down to 72cc in Butler's shop. |
| With Speedmaster castings | Round port aluminum in 72cc or 87cc, built the same way. |
| Use your castings, aluminum | Parts only, for good aftermarket aluminum cores. Guide plates can be added if your combination needs them. |
| Use your castings, cast iron | The iron version of the same idea, with a shim kit included and valve stem seals specified for machined valve guides. |
2. What Is in a Kit
The contents are consistent across the aluminum kits, and every consumable that has to match something else is in the box.
| Valves | Ferrea stainless intake and exhaust valves at stock install height. |
| Springs | Matching Crower, Edelbrock, DHP or Comp springs, selected against your camshaft specs. |
| Spring hardware | Chromoly retainers and locks, plus Comp spring locators. |
| Seals and gaskets | PEP valve stem seals, intake gaskets and exhaust gaskets. |
| Machine work, on the castings kits | All of it done in house by Butler, including the valve job and honing and fitting the guides. |
3. Exhaust Valve Size Is the Option to Think About
Intake valve size is set by the kit. The exhaust is where you have a decision, and it is not the same decision on every casting.
| Standard kits | Ferrea stainless valves with the option for an upgraded 1.77" exhaust valve. |
| 87cc D-port kit | Ships with 1.66" exhaust valves, with the option of 1.77" if the bowl is cut for it. |
| CNC ported kits | The 325 cfm D-port and round port kits come upgraded to 1.77" exhaust valves as part of the package. |
4. The CNC Ported Kits
Head Builder Kits are also offered with the porting already done, which changes what arrives at your bench.
| 325 cfm D-port | Edelbrock 72cc castings, CNC machined ports to 325 cfm, with the 1.77" exhaust valve upgrade included. |
| 325 cfm round port | The same idea on the round port casting, using Edelbrock 87cc cores. |
| What it saves | You are not shipping heads twice. The porting, the valve job and the guide work all happen before the kit leaves our head shop. |
5. Tools and Small Parts
Two practical notes for whoever is doing the assembly.
| Valve seal install tool | Butler's CNC milled billet 6061 aluminum seal installation tool for 0.500 and 0.531 seals, so seals go on without being torn or warped. |
| Supply the cam specs | Not optional if you want the spring package right. Send the cam card with the order. |
If the castings are already good, do not let them sit in the corner because you are unsure what parts they need. Call with the casting, the cam and the application and the kit gets built around them.
Not sure what your Pontiac needs?
Call our tech team at 866-762-7527. Tell us your engine, heads, car, and power goal, and we will put the parts together as one combination that works.