706s or 862s and if you feel racy cut in 2" intake valves. Don't even bother with 243s... leave those to the people that somehow think they are a Corvette head only and pay stupid amounts of money.

 

Such great insights and advice! Thanks! I've got a U-Pull-It salvage yard near me and they usually have some gm trucks. I guess I better go take a look. Anything in-particular I should be looking for or staying away from? Or as long as it's the right casting, g2g?

I'll probably stay a little conservative with the cam. Haven't really started researching that just yet

 

Only set of worked stock heads I ever owned was a set of stock 862’s with a port/polish job, 2” intake valves, milled .018” dressed up with a set of Patriot Gold duals. A guy on LS1tech (Bo White) did them for me and had Gunnar at Patriot flow them. They flowed equal to a set of stage 3 5.3’s being sold for $1500 at the time by forum Sponsors and I had a fraction of that in my heads. I ran a little 224 cam in my WS6 with a stock shortblock and on a stock tune with 6-speed on 87 with no knock and it had TONS of torque. I drove it like that for 80k miles before I sold it and the kid who bought it paid to get it tuned and on 91 he said it made almost 420rwhp and he made no motor changes. Not bad for a high mileage combo on a budget. That was enough to convince me what can be done with a stock head by someone who knows their ****. On my current truck when the time comes for heads I’ll be calling him again to do another set of 862’s for me. I know I’ll stick with a fairly small cam for your same reasons. My truck is a daily driver and I tow sometimes. It’s not a race truck so power over 6k I could care less about.

 

So I've talked to Texas Speed and Brian Tooley Racing.

TSP suggests their stage 3 cam - 216/220@0.600 - 112lsa

BTR suggests their stage 2 cam - 212/218@0.553 - 111lsa

Thoughts?

Also, going with the 706 heads and considering the intended use, is it worth it to get the heads worked at all? Or just clean them up and bolt them on?

 

Clean the heads up and send it.

 

Clean them up and bolt them on, smaller cam IMO <- purely conjecture

 

Make sure you resurface the sealing surface of the heads and block.

 

I'm not planning on pulling the engine

------------------------------------------------------

Assuming a healthy LQ4, TBSS Intake, stock 706 heads, the BTR stage 2 cam(212/218@0.553 - 111lsa) and a good tune... does anyone have ANY idea what the hp/torque numbers might look like at the crank?

It's getting a built 4L65E first and I'm trying to pick a torque converter. Everybody wants to know output, of course.

 

Mid 400s

 

Should be a fun ride once your done with it!