I have a 394 with about 130K miles on it. I was tempting the idea of pulling the heads off and have the head work done to be able to run on pump gas without the lead additive. Also, I think the engine is a little tired too. Any preferred shops in the Chicago land area? How much should I expect to pay to have this done? I will pull the heads off myself though.

 

Are you talking about putting in more modern valves or guides to prevent valve stem wear? or do you want to lower the compression ratio? If the latter, I would just look around for some low comp heads.

 

There are no low compression 394 heads. Combustion chambers are the same on them all for each year; compression ratio is changed with the piston, so you won't see any benefit from being able to use lower-octane fuel simply by doing head work.

Being as 394 are very prone to valve guide wear, cleaning up the valves and guides may pay off. The downside is that a valve job without a full engine rebuild sometimes causes increased oil consumption because the newly found compression blows oil past the rings.

394 engine components are available, just don't expect them to be as cheap as a small-block Chevy. Check with some of the folks in Illinois Valley Olds Club www.ivocolds.com and see who they recommend for Rocket engine work in the area. Chicago-land has one of the finest HydraMatic guys known if the Roto ever needs attention.

 

That's absolutely correct; I forgot about the dished pistons.

 

Thanks for the replies thus far guys. I was actually looking as far as getting the valves hardened, I don't think the valves are seating well and also I want to freshen up the motor and be able to run on straight non-leaded gas without any worries. I want to keep the compression!

 

Try playing around with the timing, and I still think its unnecessary to replace valve seats with hardened ones to run unleaded gas is pointless unless you are towing or using this car for other extreme reasons.

 

Hmm, maybe I will check that. I think I may do a leak down test first. It can be one smokey sob!