Hi,

I’m a newbie.

I bought a 1968 442 Holiday Coupe out of California back in 1979, it’s been garage kept ever since, very clean.

I threw the 400 cubic inch engine away, dumb kid, and replaced it with a 350 out of a Cutlass I had. The 350 had been rebuilt at my father’s NAPA machine shop, forged pistons, 30 over, ground and polished crank, decked block, etc…..

I see that Edelbrock is no longer listing replacement aluminum heads for Oldsmobile, and it appears that Summit has no Olds heads left in stock (typical for Olds parts). I’ve looked at these Edelbrock heads in the past and they are listed as fitting all 1964 to 1977 Olds V8’s with the 350 & 403 requiring an aftermarket Edelbrock intake manifold.

I took my cast iron heads to a machine shop to have them redone (again) and they cut into the water jacket when removing a seat, so they obtained another set of cast iron heads.

How can I be sure that they are the proper heads, I’m pretty confident that they will work, but how can I determine the year of the heads? Can one tell by the numbers cast into the heads? I was told that they had a slightly different combustion chamber volume.

Old set – (397742) cast on surface under valve cover (742 cast on the head gasket side)

New Heads – (408 147) Cast over top of two center exhaust runners (147 cast on the head gasket side).

Any ideas or input?

Thanks,
Berts 442

 

Old set – (397742) this is a number 5 head and was made 1968-69.
New Heads – (408 147) this is a number 7 or 7a head and was made in 1971-72.

 

Thanks Mike,

Makes me feel better as I bolt them on.....