about 2grand to spend

Cobain03

Active Member
Aug 27, 2003
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Lexington, Ky
im really wanting to get some more horsepower but i keep getting talked into building a roller 302. whats the deal? what do you reccomend? can i do a complete roller setp for 2 grand? im shooting for 300 wheel horsepower. to get that i'd have to change heads (1100 bucks), cam and intake swap, new rockers, ect.
 
I think your 289 would really scream w/ a nice set of heads and as you mentioned the cam/intake swap, could also get some nice roller rockers and be right around your $2k bugdet. I would think building a complete roller 302 would be way more expensive. On a side not, our combo's seem very similar. I see your hp and tq #'s and that's about what i had gussed my engine would make. Have you ran it in the 1/4? I have never actually dyno'd mine. :nice:
 
save your money if your current short block is still good. just do the heads cam and intake. But if your building a new motor go with a hyd roller motor and use the factory lifters and push rods. Ive herd the roller lifters are worth a few extra horses but nothing dramatic, the benifit of a roller cam is had from the profile you can run with it.

Chris
 
our local club is renting the dragstip March 30th and will be run then.

does anyone have anything good or bad ot say about the edelbrock performer RPM package? the egine had a fresh rebuild about 5-6000 miles ago with all new internals. i might just get that cause everything has been proven to match each other and get rid of my stupid patriot tri y's for some nice hooker long tubes. a buddy of mine mentioned that even if i do miss the 300 horse that i want, a little big of giggle juice would be nice and secretive.
 
first you dont need to spend $1100 on heads, buy a set of world products windsor jr heads since they run about $900 ready to bolt on.

second you dont need a roller cam to make power, but it does help. you can do a roller conversion for about $600 depending on the lifter set you buy. the crane link bar roller lifters run about $450, and a roller cam from comp cams runs about $150-$200. dont forget the steel dist gear and the pushrods for the roller engine. if the short block is in good shape, then you are about done. just drop on a set of roller rockers.

if on the other hand the short block needs freshening, then determine what needs to be done, rings and bearings, or do you also need machine work and/or new pistons. and plan accordingly.
 
first you dont need to spend $1100 on heads, buy a set of world products windsor jr heads since they run about $900 ready to bolt on.

I have these heads and am not impressed. I was reading an article from a magazine (cant remember which one, may have been the MM&FF comparison a while back) and these $900 185cc cast iron heads only barely beat out a set of stock $400 ~145cc cast iron gt40 heads in terms of horsepower. In my case, I didnt know the spark plug angle was similar to the gt40P, which does not clear any Falcon headers that I know of. IIRC, that same article also mentioned they ran into valve float because of a heavy valvetrain that comes in these heads. In my oh-so-humble opinion, if youre going to spend a bunch of money on good heads, spend a little more and get a lot more with something with a smaller port, yet produces more power, such as the AFR 165.
 
These are the numbers from the article I mentioned.

Stock E7TE.................. 306 @ 5300
GT-40P...................... 336 @ 5700
Windsor Jr.................. 351 @ 5900
GT-40 (Y303 aluminum)....... 353 @ 5600
Canfield 170............... .371 @ 5800
Brodix ST 5.0R............ ..375 @ 5800
Holley Systemax............. 377 @ 5900
Edelbrock Performer...... ...384 @ 6000
AFR 165..................... 396 @ 5800
 
These are the numbers from the article I mentioned.

Stock E7TE.................. 306 @ 5300
GT-40P...................... 336 @ 5700
Windsor Jr.................. 351 @ 5900
GT-40 (Y303 aluminum)....... 353 @ 5600
Canfield 170............... .371 @ 5800
Brodix ST 5.0R............ ..375 @ 5800
Holley Systemax............. 377 @ 5900
Edelbrock Performer...... ...384 @ 6000
AFR 165..................... 396 @ 5800

Do you have a link to the article?
 
I have these heads and am not impressed. I was reading an article from a magazine (cant remember which one, may have been the MM&FF comparison a while back) and these $900 185cc cast iron heads only barely beat out a set of stock $400 ~145cc cast iron gt40 heads in terms of horsepower. In my case, I didnt know the spark plug angle was similar to the gt40P, which does not clear any Falcon headers that I know of. IIRC, that same article also mentioned they ran into valve float because of a heavy valvetrain that comes in these heads. In my oh-so-humble opinion, if youre going to spend a bunch of money on good heads, spend a little more and get a lot more with something with a smaller port, yet produces more power, such as the AFR 165.

the thing you have to consider is that the windsor jr heads were the first aftermarket head for the 302/5.0, and they compare favorably to the stock head, and even to ported stock heads out of the box. as for the other heads, i would certainly hope that they would at least equal if not exceed the original aftermarket head, given the technology available. but also consider that cobain has a budget, and bolting on 50hp while maintaining the budget is a cost effective measure. sure some of the other heads do make more power, but they also run between $250-600 more. i also would like to see this article.
 
I cant seem to find the article. The numbers I got were from someone else quoting the article. I believe the article was in MM&FF in early 2003. It was a series, where they tested all the heads in 3 stages from street, street/strip, to full race.
 
The Ultimate Guide to Cylinder Heads

I cant seem to find the article. The numbers I got were from someone else quoting the article. I believe the article was in MM&FF in early 2003. It was a series, where they tested all the heads in 3 stages from street, street/strip, to full race.

I think I found it... if not it is still pretty cool:

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="90%" align=center border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>Ultimate Guide to 5.0 Cylinder Heads


</TD></TR><TR><TD></TD></TR><TR><TD></TD></TR><TR><TD></TD></TR><TR><TD></TD></TR><TR><TD>
Muscle Mustang and Fast Ford Dec 03

:nice:
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
 
you think so? just a set of heads?

Yes.

There was an article in Car Craft that Matt King wrote where they took a freshened 5.0 roller motor with a stock shortblock (stock pistons, stock cam) and used a set of long tube headers, a 750 DP Holley, a set of 1.7 roller rockers, a Performer RPM, and an older set of 165cc AFR's and made more that 400 at the crank. Matt wrote on another forum he tried the same engine with Edlebrock heads and made 396HP on the same dyno and 395HP on another one, so the numbers were good. At least he thought so, he's a no BS kind of guy.

You'll be down a little power with the 289 because you have less displacment, but I think you'll be real close for a lot less trouble this way.

Back in the 1980's, all the hard core street racers I knew who ran Fords were rich. They had to be because the heads we had back then all stunk it up big time, and they had to pay thier head guru a small fortune to run with the bowtie crowd. Today it's not that way because you can buy just raving awesome heads for pennies. IMO the AFR's are the best and worth the premium.

BTW, I found the article. Here it is:

http://www.carcraft.com/techarticles/116_0307_ford_302_v8_engine_buildup/index.html