[earlbrown]

Since I'm having to do my heads, I've been thinking about going a little bigger. With the "upgrade" to 1.77's, I'll have to remove around .035" of meat from my seats. Is there enough metal there or do you have to install new seats to make them work?

 

[87GTA-turbo]

Well I guess it depends on their (seats) condition, when I went that route I sprung for the seat inserts for both intake and exhaust.
The inserts also cures the spring/valve stem height issues on high mileage heads.
I am thinking while you have them off the car do it; its not like a set of vavle springs or rockers that you can change your mind when they are on the car ...
Snyder makes some top quality inserts of varing material, gold series, diamond series, etc...

 

[Kendall Frederick]

There is enough material to put the 1.77s in without installing new seats. In iron heads, I would avoid putting seats in, personally.

 

[wmsonta]

Since I'm having to do my heads, I've been thinking about going a little bigger. With the "upgrade" to 1.77's, I'll have to remove around .035" of meat from my seats. Is there enough metal there or do you have to install new seats to make them work?

Typically, in order to install larger valves, you will start with an all new seat. The new valves would go in at oem stock height. Even if the old valves are low, the larger ones won't be.

I would only have this done on a Serdi or equivalent. For the street, I would want the valve throat at 85% of the valve diameter. Race is typically 90-92%.

I would pay alot of attention to the valve guides. When tightened up, I saw valve guides make 9hp on a 130 ci ford 4-cyl.