A valuable lesson for people doing PI swap

[Rife96GTconv]

I planned to do a pi swap on my 96 gt two weeks ago, but ran into a BIG problem. I was given a free set of 02 PI heads a month ago. The motor they cam off had about 90K on it. Long story short, I had a buddy take the heads to a reputable machine shop for me, and when they were tested, there were cracks in them. Obviously I am not going to be using these anymore, but if I hadn't had them looked over, I would not have found the cracks and that would have lead to bigger problems.

For anyone doing this with used heads, make sure you take them to a reputable machine shop first. I know some people who haven't, but I consider it a lesson learned, and now I will just save some more money and buy new heads.

By the way, does anyone know the best place to order new heads from that has the best price?


96 laser red GT conv.
CAI, 70mm tb, VRS x-pipe, magnaflow cat back, steeda triax, SCT Tuner 93 octane tune, 3.73, H&R SS springs, Tokico blues, MM cc plates, X2 balljoints, Steeda bumpsteer kit, 17x9 & 17x10.5 chrome bullitts

 

[VTGT91]

Btw I noticed that init signaure that u have had the car tuned with ur sct to the 93 octane tune. You'll want to be careful when u do the pi swap because of the increased compression. Increasing the compression increases the need for higer octane. The sct advances the timing which also requires more octane. So u may run into problems where the engine becomes octane starved. You may have to pull back on the tune to 87 tune but u will still need to run 93

 

[Rife96GTconv]

I appreciate the advice. The shop that will tune it for me mentioned the same thing. Thanks for lookin out.

 

[LarsD]

Summit racing has them for $395-$415.

I have no idea if that is a good price or not.

 

[RedFord96]

That price is per new cylinder head, and it's pretty average. I don't think I've ever seen a set of brand new PI heads for under $800ish. Well, minus the ones I got for cheap locally.

 

[Timin]

I have been looking into Heads/Cams packages myself and I came across the CMS web site and saw some of their deals that seemed reasonable price wise. The cheapest package they have listed is Patriot Performance Stage II porting for $1145. Considering most shops will charge you $600 to $800 for a Stage X port, it means these heads are about $600 for both.

No idea on quality of the heads or work, and I am no way shape or form affiliated with CMS...Perhaps some people can chime in on any of their experiences with CMS.



-Karl