steam holes

[WayFast84]

Say you drill a set of heads for steam holes to work on a 400 sbc, then after your 400sbc blows up or something, can you then put them on a 350 with out any problems?

[johnjzjz]

yes you can -- almost all motor head combos have i hole or two not open to the other side and steam holes are small --BTW steam hole drilling is a high compression thing for the most part -- you can avoid it if you want -- we in my shop before it becomes popular to drill the heads had always drilled the front and back of the intake and ran water lines out of the rear of the intake to the front and never had extreme cracking problems -- but when that what was called the fix ( steam drilling ) became popular every one had to have it instead -- i never seen any difference -- 400 motors crack no matter what you do -- and it wont last long with or without the holes as a hot rod motor -- i would spend the steam drilling money on a northern alloy radiator and a shroud for it instead -- jz

[hardline_42]

Matt, lot's of people are running 400's with no cooling problems. The holes are drilled in six locations, 3 of them at an angle and are done with an 1/8" bit. It keeps steam from getting trapped between the siamesed cylinders. And you can bolt them back on to a block without steam holes afterwards.