Peanut ports have more potential than people think, they will make well over 500 hp in the right combination, with a ton of low speed torque, perfect low rpm torque street head. 👌🏻

I never had it on a dyno but a retired gm tech in Louisville KY built a 402 for me back in 2009 with peanut ports that a few oval and rectangular port motors couldn't hang with. I was suprised. The people i beat was even more surprised hahaha. Idk how many times i pulled the valve covers off to show people the casting numbers.

Peanut ports are perfect street heads for a car with highway gears or in a pickup. They do not breath well over 5000 regardless of the cam, but the smaller port increases low speed volumetric efficiency compared to the larger square port heads.

Ron Sporl from Bessemer AL has gotten over 500hp from stock peanut ports on a mild 496…… Engine was installed in his 3+3 crew cab dually(prob 6500#) Truck ran pretty damn good,even had cast iron exhaust manifolds. He used it to tow offshore power boats

Peanut port heads were used on low performance 454 marine engines factory rated at about 330 hp + -. The exhaust ports have a mold casting line and are quite thin in this area. I have seen many rust through on salt water cooled engines. So even if used on a car or fresh water closed cooling system be aware that the exhaust port side walls are thin so go lightly on porting.

Great video, thanks. I've thought of using peanut port heads on my '69 El Camino 396. It's a low rpm freeway cruiser. Interesting about putting a larger intake valve in the short intake runner. I might think about replacing the stock 2.06" with a 2.19" in those four places. Maybe not necessary for my application but hey, why not it's cool

the flow numbers are better than 781's/049's up to .400 lift and about the same at .500 lift. the 781's still gain at .600. I guess if you already have some peanut ports or get them real cheap, you'd be doing alright. getting some 781's or 049's and putting bigger valves in those would be a substantial jump in CFM, if I recall correctly. in Facebook groups and on forums, you always hear people talk about 781's and peanut ports. it would be nice for all of us budget guys to have a comparison and be able to see what the real difference in these heads is. bigger valves vs ported vs stock for example.

Us budget build guys really appreciate this video. Alloy heads are far superior but sometimes this iron stuff is all we got 👍🏻

I ported a set of peanut ports back in the late nineties and remember porting the oval port size all the way in. Maybe the early heads had more metal in the ports. I went with all bigger valves and blended the bowls to match. I never had them flowed but they ran very well on the 460 in a 1968 Impala. 12.80et @ 108mph and had gobs of torque. I tried running 350th and after the tearing 3rd gear out of the 3rd one I went to a 400th.

I would've loved to see you put another 2.25 valve in that could have a correct backcut angle flowed for comparison not only against the Manley, but against the 2.19 on the stronger port.

Back in the day. The 80’s. The Late John Lingenfelter would upgrade some 049/781 large oval port heads with 2.19/1.88 valve sizes and perform some port work. They made big numbers for street stuff. But I’ve seen plenty of posts that people say dyno numbers for some worked peanut ports can get you 500 hp in a mild 454 big block.

Mark at vortech pro ran 10s with a set of 236s at 9.3:1 compression some porting and running lt1 small block springs...also added 2.19 and 1.88 valves in a 3700 lb Chevelle...you can search it.

I really appreciate these videos you keep throwing up. This one is great for the simple fact of being a hack job and having genuine flow figures to demonstrate the improvement.

I was fortunate enough to be taught many years ago to always grind a back cut when resurfacing valves. A few mins extra while the other guys are out smoking. Maybe I just enjoyed doing valve jobs, but it makes sense to do it if there’s material in the way.

Very informative and interesting as always.Thank you.

It wasn't such a thing back in the day.. but it seems like a lot of people fall back on the back cut for numbers now.

It’s nice to see that he put some time into heads that most would throw a nose in the air to and made decent flow improvement.

Props to the owner for volunteering...that is how you truly learn what not to do...and what helps Spent many yrs and thousands out of pocket on projects to learn myself otherwise you really dont know whats happening . A pro is worth every penny there is so much more to it, picking the right VJ to compliment it people have no idea. I tend to be harsh on yt'ers who promote grinding the pizz out of a valve seat with a drill. Why port if youre gonna shortcut things?

Impressive for low buck high torque.... Great info/content!

Very good review, thank you.

better than i expected.

Dv did a trapezoid port on an epoxied rec port

Done exactly this on my gen 4 penut ports! Hopefully it does ok

Not a bad street head, but the weight is considerable. An aluminum version would be great for a 500hp street car with awesome torque.

Nice proof that porting works. I am trying to get through to you about some Dragon Slayer 260cc Xtra heads. I need a set for Drag Week.

I'm not sure of the exact year they first came out but I bought two 454's out of some wrecked '76 Impala police cars back in the 1970's and both of them had peanut port heads with regular oval port intakes on them. One engine had flat tops with one valve relief pistons and the other had pistons with a big dish in the middle. I guess they were experimenting.

I always thought they called em peanut ports because the flow was peanuts compared to a real BBC head.

They were used from 1975 to 95 on trucks

As a Mopar guy, I'm disappointed that the worst bbc head outflows the best factory 440 head by 30 cfm.

great video. I love seeing the port work people do. to me this one represents what DIY guy can do in their own garage with and little time and elbow grease invested. I think the peanut port heads would be killer setup for the 366 truck motors, or 396 baby big block for a daily driver BBC or a light truck like a C10 or K10. match it with a cam like a COMP 266HR-12 and standard Edelbrock performer 2161 along with a good Q-Jet carb and some 1 3/4" long tube headers and it would be a stump pulling monster. I would figure around 375HP peak around 5500rpm and should make a tabletop flat torque curve of around 450lbft from around 1500-4500 rpm.

Peanut port heads do have potential especially with the right combo, but for me I'd jump right to some large oval port heads or rectangular port heads.

Eric I've yet to see comparisons between 049 or similar bbc heads with the large oval ports to the low dollar aluminum heads. That would be a nice comparison both as cast and ported irons

one of the big problems is see with using peanut port heads is that there is no aftermarket peanut port intakes? you hinted to it about the intake port size! As far as what I have seen all aftermarket oval port heads have way bigger ports then the peanut port size.

With nick's heads and any other 049 or 781 head with 3/8 stems would these Ferrea 5000 series F5108 - Intake valves @ 2.19" & 3/8 stem 5.246" work better? And order under cut stems with flat face.

What width of a backcut do you shoot for?

Thinking about a BBC in my C1500 suburban, and I'm curious about this head. Not looking for racing but loading up with people and gear the 350 struggles.

EW, I just want to throw an idea out if it happens to be an option. Can you do a flow comp of notched bore vs. non-notched bore?

I emailed this guy about a year ago and he said he didn't work on iron heads so maybe he has had a change of heart!

only the exhaust guides go into water jacket.

Link for his page?

It seems like 500 hp on a big block Chevy doesn't take much. But that's pretty cool I have a 402 BBC with oval ports all it's been done to it is just bigger cam, a dual plane intake, and a 750 cfm carburetor I believe and roller rockers. The heads aren't ported it just a have fun motor that's all it was it's not running yet but it's on my 1971 El Camino

These are on some 454 boat engines. My question is would upgrading the heads be worth it? The boat cruises in the 2500-3600rpm range and can run up to about 5000rpm flat out. If I was to swap heads would I gain power in the cruising rpms and torque? Most marine cams are fairly mild but I was looking at a Howard’s marine cam and maybe an air gap intake. Would you be willing to make a recommendation for a marine engine on the heads and maybe a cam?

They would work decent on a street 396/402 I think. I believe they were 225cc runner volume factory, wonder what they are now?

When you put the rectangle manifold on the oval head did you add clay to shape the port or just ran into the wall

Firstly, it's nearly impossible to screw up a BBC. They make power so easily. These peanut heads on a low compression 454 in a heavy car can be real fun on the street. With a 230 duration cam and around .550 lift, you'll see well over 500 ft lbs of torque all the way to 5K rpm. That's tire shredding fun! They're done by 5500 rpm but, not everyone wants to wind their BBC to 7500. Plus, not everyone goes to the track every weekend. People are sleeping on these dirt cheap heads.

How much horsepower could a stock 781 or 049 head support?

Peanut arrived from small child.. older aunt's & uncle's would call children peanuts bc their small people..

Going to need a nice sized cam to get 500 hp with only 250 cfm

A thin valve will warp .

Your no superman but a supergrinder yeah I'd say so

I got four of them for sale stock no valves 50.00 each.

You are making a mistake with respect to terminology- you keep saying "hurts performance" when you should be saying " hurts power" or specifically "hurts HP." Whether he is working with peanut ports to stay within a class, or because he is truly wanting to have the best possible "low idle"of idle low end "torque," the application that one is aiming for dictates the "performance needed" regardless to where in the rev range power (HP) and (Tork) numbers are generated. Examlpe: You have a Buick 3800 NA that makes a few more peak HP than a late 70s Cadillac 500- so the Buick definataly makes more power right? Lets have a tractor pulling competition and see which one performs better. I lived this, kinda, teying to pull out a stump. The 3800 couldn't even budge the stump and I had to rev it so high to make any decent torqe that all I did was spin the tires into their own grave. Now the low end grunt less powerful Caddy motor- it crawled the stump out effortlessly without even spinning the tires. In that application, the low power Cadillac 500 analiated the high power Buick 3800. Always remember, performance is determined by application, and peak HP and peak torque values don't mean performance, just rather IN RELATION TO POSITION ON A POWER/TORQUE GRAPH which is used to determine what situations said numbers will best perform in. Not everyone is looking to operate at 100% RPM in light vehicles all the time. Example 2: My 1992 Toyota Corolla gets better performance, with respect to MPG, than my 1982 1 tonned Suburban with a moddified 454- but my 454 makes more power and torque anywhere in the rev range of either engine. See what I mean, a lot of "other" factors come into play with regards to the word "performance" so please stop saying "hurts performance" when I think you mean to say "hurts flow." And depending on the situation flow can actually "hurt performance." Richard Holden is bad about this also- he is stuck in a world where mid and high range peak numbers are all that matter to him. Granted he is indirectly in the business of selling "performance parts," but notice he almost always clips off low end RPM from his graphs? He will say, for example, that cam B is way more worth it for performance than a Thuck Norris cam, not realizing that the Truck Norris cam is trying to find that nice teater totter balance between having to rev the crap out of the engine or not to get to the point of making any decent power- really important in an application where you want to maximize power and torque while still being able to tow and get decent fuel economy. Again, performance goals vary, and in some situations to much flow hurts performance.