Hey Thor,  you are thinking in the right direction.   The Pro Port is machined a little different than the regular Ed at the rocker pad.  They are solid all the way across at the flange.  It requires very tall spacers on the bolt bosses, and a billet aluminium subplate.  When the max effort language entered the discussion, all of the heads need more material to go where I am talking about in terms of port roof height.  All of the heads need the floors filled a bunch, and the Pro Ports have a higher floor as cast, so that part is an easier fix.  The spring pads do have to be modified in the Eds, but easy if done on the front end.  Valve angle gets tweaked a little too, which helps the geometry in the end.  I'm doing some now, just not interested in  putting pics on the interweb.  They are still inline valves, and it will still look like an FE.  You are correct that staying within the confines of the original casting, the BT is taller, but we can't seem to count on those anyway, so I came up with a way to modify the Eds, which are available, to meet the "max effort" call.   At some point, I will have a cnc program for the billet plates that makes the modification much less expensive.  It would also work on the BBM head, but a person would have to be okay with a ton of green stuff in the floor.  I would not want to put that much weld (heat) in the casting as it will soften the head if you do too much, too fast.  I have been plating the Victor manifolds for years to get to the HR port height.  I'm pretty excited about plating Jay's HR adapter to accomodate the extra height of this junk I'm doing now.   It will be much less expensive than a billet valley tray to just modify Jay's piece and then build the spider.  I like to get outside the box like you said, but time to do the R&D on this stuff is hard to come by these days.  I hope all is well up your way..........

I think the answer to that question depends on what the intended purpose is.   My definition of "max efort" may not be the same as others.  I can tell you for sure that the assumption that a BT High Riser is THE best max effort casting is just not the case.  The Edelbrock casting can be prepped to meet or exceed anything you can do with the BT HR head.  It does require a high port plate, a valve cover rail spacer, and the use of the T&D race valvetrain to do it, but I promise you with no doubt about it, that the Pro Port casting is up to the task.  It is available, and in raw form, much less expensive per casting than the BT head, which is not available anyway.  I decided a few years ago that I could not afford to sink the development and programming effort into a BT head that was/is hard to get, and possibly not available.   A person in the business of custom porting just can't do it based on a one-time, or a few-time opportrunity.    I can get the port just as high as, higher actually, in the Ed head as the BT.  The mounting pads for the T&D will become too thin to keep from pulling the top of the head off if you go too far with the BT without a high port plate, which ends up making all of the heads a candidate for the high port plate.  That's all I want to say about the intake port plate unless you contact me at the shop, but let's just say it is a high riser on steroids,  it requires a custom manifold, and it is not cheap.

Pro Ports can be done all kinds of ways. I would not normally post prices in a thread like this, but the question was asked.  The "Street Pro Port" can be had for $3500 ready for springs........that includes the cost of the castings, super alloy Ferrea custom valves, valvejob, blending, valves lapped, and seals.  The heads  have a Meduim Riser intake port location, require no offset valvetrain, can be used with OEM mounting, or milled for race T&D for a minimal charge.  I have not made more than 785 hp/710 torque with that head.  It is the most bang-for-the-buck head that I know of at $3500.  It has much smaller port volume than other heads that start life with an "as cast" port.  The other day we ran a set on a 390 with a .525 lift solid roller cam I just came up with and it made 550 hp at 6300, and had peak torque of 483.  The point being.....that version of the Pro Port is usable on anything from  360 or so inches to 500 inches and does not break the bank.

From there, "max effort" is a very broad term.  I have some "sure 'nuff" max effort stuff that is $12K-plus for a complete pair.......and then it goes down from there depending on what you are doing and how much you want to spend.  A set of 850 hp capable Pro Ports that work with a modified Tunnel Wedge would be $5K before hardware.  The cost per HP in heads  from 850-capable to 1000-capable is high in an FE.  A bunch of stuff has to change with the heads, manifold, and other pieces, to get past the 850 hp threshhold with certainty and reliability.  Lots of stuff in between the "street" and the 'extreme" heads, but the best CNC stuff that comes from here will all start life from the Pro Port casting.

The BT and the BBM heads can certainly make big power, if you work them right.  In my opinion, both would require some filling in places, be it weld or epoxy, to get the best results.  I have had conversations with BBM about a porter's head down the road, and there are/were a number of small port BT castings that have great potential, but are scarce and rare these days.

Interesting as always.
Blair Patrick just sold a 427 SO block based engine on the forum here for a "cough" for a modest price.
That dyno print out showed 89.1 psi peak oil pressure at 6200 rpm and an average 83.7 psi.
Now if I was looking at those numbers I would be pretty happy with the oil flow.
It would be interesting to know how he got there, but using the plain old Melling M57-HV on my 428 I just don't see those
kind of numbers even at 6000 rpm.
I stop at 6000 rpm, mostly because I can't even drive the thing at that speed
so going higher is not going to help me.

I always tap and plug the two "spit holes" in the crankcase, and eliminate the bypass.  The last thing you want to do is blow off oil to the rear of a front sump engine under hard acceleration.  That bypassed oil will never see the pickup until you let off the gas, or it blows up from no oil in the sump..........which killed many drag race 427's in the day.  The oval track apps may have seen some benefit, but I still can't see it.  The spit holes are in just a peachy place to wrap that oil right arount the crank and kill a little power also.

Rocker arm to shaft clearance, LIFTER BORE to lifter clearance, main bearing clearance, and to a lesser degree, rod bearing and cam bearing clearance all play a role in making the pressure more consistent.  If you have a severe bleed from one or more of these places, the idle oil pressure, and low rpm pressures will suffer.  I work on the pump a little also.  If it bypasses early, at least it is going to the front of the pan in the modern Melling pumps.  I use a few Titans also, but they bypass internal.  Not much gain there, but higher quality parts..........

The 482 pictured in this ad with the 2X4's is now sold.  The single four BBM block engine is still available as of the time of this post.

Thanks very much to all who have looked and inquired.........

You might just ream the bad ones first, and see if the existing bushings are okay.  It is probably better to ream them in a BHJ fixture, but just following what is already there would work if you are careful.  The Chrysler size ID is still fine with the 1" OD.  Staking the bushings is probably more important as the wall thickness is reduced.  Keith, I just use 10/32 set screws.....nothing special.  I would drill the tap size hole all the way through the bushing.....then tap just deep enough to get a thread or two started into the bushing.  The taper on the tap will not allow the set screw to go all the way to the ID.  Just don't go too snug on the set screw so it won't egg the bore, and use red loctite on the set screws.  It should be done before you ream a new bushing, so the "dimple" will get taken out with the reamer.  Staking existing bushings should be done carefully, and going with what Thor said.....if you went to the .903 you could stake before reaming to the .903.  It would be tricky to stake an .875, not having any stock to cut it round again.  A new .875 would be no problem to ream after the screws are in.  I would use the green loctite on the bushings even if you stake them. 

I'm with Jay and JDC on their thinking.  That manifold might behave a little nicer below peak torque than the SV, but it will have it's hands full to stay in the game past 5500 rpm versus the SV.  The Super Victor is a very good manifold for it's intended purpose.  I think the 4-hole spacers are the way to go, but stagger jetting the carbs would help it.  Eight O2's in the primary tubes would be ideal, but don't forget there are still a few guys around who can read a spark plug the good old fashioned way.  It will want more jet in the low runners/less jet in the high runners, but you need at least a baseline collector O2 sensor to get in the ballpark if you want to tweak the tune by stagger jetting and reading the plugs.

Summit sells the 4-hole wood/phenolic in their house brand for $30 each with gaskets and studs included.  The MR dual plane will need the 4-hole design.  It won't play nice with anything else the way the manifold is made with a 4-hole plenum.

Price reduced..........The 2x4 engine can be bought for $18,500.  The single four engine with BBM block is now $17,500.  If interested, my email is captcj at hughes dot net.

Thanks.