I picked up a decent set of heads from an early 1997 Mercury Mountaineer. I removed all of the plugs including the one that was rust welded in place and am now in the process of finding a good machine shop in the Metro-north Boston area to do what needs to be done to make these ready to bolt on my 1988 5.0.
I did a lot of reading before picking these up and I remember reading that these need to be milled to be the same specs as the 1993+ Cobra heads. Is this true?
I plan on port matching these to a set of FRPP intake gaskets and cleaning up the ports in general. Besides that:
1) The Mountaineer had 65K on it and I guess the junk yard pulled the engine after the woman owner hit something that poked a hole in her oil pan. The junky told me the SUV was shut down before it siezed, but was parted out because a new engine was swapped in. The valves don't look like they were overheated, but they are still mounted in the head so I don't know what the seats look like. Assuming the valves are in good shape, should I clean them up and reuse or replace them with FRPP stainless bits? When I had head work done on my Ducatis I was recommended to keep the OEM valves as they would have the best durability and I am assuming the same holds true here.
2) Tmoss recommended I upgrade to Comp Cams #978 springs to match my OEM cam and FRPP 1.72 roller rockers. What valve keepers should I buy? Spring retainers?
3) These heads have some scale rust on the outside and look like they could benefit from some time with a wire wheel. Should I get these "hot tanked" or is the wire wheel treatment sufficient?
4) Anything I missed?
I did a lot of reading before picking these up and I remember reading that these need to be milled to be the same specs as the 1993+ Cobra heads. Is this true?
I plan on port matching these to a set of FRPP intake gaskets and cleaning up the ports in general. Besides that:
1) The Mountaineer had 65K on it and I guess the junk yard pulled the engine after the woman owner hit something that poked a hole in her oil pan. The junky told me the SUV was shut down before it siezed, but was parted out because a new engine was swapped in. The valves don't look like they were overheated, but they are still mounted in the head so I don't know what the seats look like. Assuming the valves are in good shape, should I clean them up and reuse or replace them with FRPP stainless bits? When I had head work done on my Ducatis I was recommended to keep the OEM valves as they would have the best durability and I am assuming the same holds true here.
2) Tmoss recommended I upgrade to Comp Cams #978 springs to match my OEM cam and FRPP 1.72 roller rockers. What valve keepers should I buy? Spring retainers?
3) These heads have some scale rust on the outside and look like they could benefit from some time with a wire wheel. Should I get these "hot tanked" or is the wire wheel treatment sufficient?
4) Anything I missed?