Winter, the chamber overhang is negligible and is dictated by the core shift of the block and/or head of each engine. Not all of them even have an issue. But notching the cylinders for valve clearancing and enhanced breathing is one of those "hidden" speed secrets that all engine builders do that the average hobbyist might not know to do, or is skeptical about performing. We used 2.150" intake valves and 1.625" exhaust valves in our heads and didn't offset the head. That is one of those mods that isn't necessary and was probably concieved out of imitation from some other engine type, while truly important other mods were overlooked, but stuck in someones mind as being critical when it isn't. The chamber on the 194 head places the chamber in the opposite direction from the cylinder wall and too far away to be corrected and will shroud both the intake and exhaust more than can be gained by attempting to unshroud it. It simply can't be undone regardless of the effort put into it. GM, all the top 6 cylinder engine builders and head porters, GM engineers like Tom Langdon and countless top racers have known that about the 194 head and have shown and proven it for decades. Why is that so hard to accept. We were part of that crowd as well at one time and like others, did some good things with the 194 head. But once the advantages of the open chamber head were discovered, there became no point in persuing it any longer, as many others discovered that as well. At our level of power, this was about a 45-50 HP gain over the 194 head. Tom showed about a 10 HP gain with the open chamber head across the entire RPM range, even after unshrouding the 194 head. So bottom line is, you will do more and spend more, but get less with the 194 head. So everyone got to see first hand that this was confirming what all the top guys had been saying all this time.
