...what good cylinder head flow is worth.
The article is in the winter 2006 engine masters; done on an ALUMINUM block chevy LS1, 346 cubes, built by the chief cylinder head designer for Air Flow Research for his 2000 Corvette.
The 346 bore and stroke is 3.905 X 3.622, almost a combo of a mopar 318 bore and 360 stroke. The engine used AFR's smaller cylinder head with 205cc intake runner. AFR believes in high port velocities. They said you'll never go back to big runner cross section lazy port flow once you feel the difference. Note that port SHAPE is very important.
Cam was hyd roller 224/228 duration at 0.05 lift. Valve lift was 0.581/0.588 using 1.7 rocker ratio. Most valve lift for the least duration is the way to go.
They then added a 4 inch stroker crank to up the engine size to 383 CID, and used the same heads and cam to produce the following dyno results:
Cubes Torque at 3000 rpm TQ at 5000 rpm Peak HP at rpm Compression ratio
346 410 475 550 at 6500 11.3:1
383 450 525 550 at 6000 10.9:1
The engine had no accessories, used an electric H20 pump.
So the cubes increased 10% (346 to 383), and the torque increased a consistant 10% everywhere throughout the range from 3000-6500 rpm.
So small blocks can be made to run. and yes, we need an aluminum block for the small block mopar.