Ford heads...

Stang_1973 said:

I am on a pretty tight budget but would like to get some heads better than stock. On e-bay there are always Ford heads from late model mustangs at pretty cheap prices. I know GT40 heads are probably the best ford has to offer but I usually see alot of E7TE, D0O8, and lots of other castings. Would any of these heads be better than my stock ones? Would they bolt right up?

BTW: car is a dily driver and doesnt need to make huge amounts of power, just something decent to go with my other mods.

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Any late model smallblock head will be better than any early smallblock head. E7TE's are ok (they came on 5.0 HO's and all 302 trucks). Any GT40 head will fit also. Watch out for GT40P heads. They are a great iron head, but require a special header. If it isn't a GT40 head I wouldn't consider it. And keep in mind CNC E7TE heads are cheap (like $700 from www.powerheads.com/products.html ) and make good power, but used aluminum heads can be had cheap too.

Stang_1973 said:

I am on a pretty tight budget but would like to get some heads better than stock. On e-bay there are always Ford heads from late model mustangs at pretty cheap prices. I know GT40 heads are probably the best ford has to offer but I usually see alot of E7TE, D0O8, and lots of other castings. Would any of these heads be better than my stock ones? Would they bolt right up?

BTW: car is a dily driver and doesnt need to make huge amounts of power, just something decent to go with my other mods.

Click to expand...

If you need head work like a valve job, you could have the head shop put bigger valves in the heads. If they use bigger valves, they will need to touch up the valve chambers, smothing them out. If you are mechanically inclined, you could also gasket match the intake and exhaust. I did mine with a Dremel Tool. A die grinder is better but I didn't have one and didn't want to buy on so I took my time and got it done. I don't necessarily agree with the "old heads not being as good as the newer ones" approach because the early ones had smaller combustion chambers, raising the compression. But I can't say for sure because of fitment runner configurations, etc. For example, I use '68 heads with 351 valves and port matching I did myself on a '74 block. The pistons are flat top, I have a mild cam and recurved the timing, etc, and it runs pretty well. I hear you about the tight budget. $1,100.00 for aluminum heads is pretty steep. They work well, but are just too expensive for me. I think I paid $400.00 for all of the work on my iron heads. That included bigger valves, hardened seats, new guides, performace springs and a slight milling to get 'em back flat. Also included a set of gaskets.

i bought a set of D0OE heads with 1.94/1.6 stainless valves, screw in studs, guideplates, milled, high lift springs and retainers for 500 shipped off of ebay

haven't installed them yet but i'm hoping after a slight clean up to gain a good little chunk over my non-hipo 289 heads

I bought a set of junkyard E7TE's for $75 here's what I did........ First thing was reworking the exhaust passages by opening them up 1/4" wider and 1/4" taller ( raising the roof) and grinding the thermactor bump completely off inside the port. Blended the passages down into the bowl under the valve on each. I also polished the chambers, and removed any sharp edges from them. The intake sides, I pretty much left alone, except for a gasket match and blending the bowls under the valves. Then I took them to a local auto machine shop and there they did a valve job including using a Serdi machine to resurface the seats, this gives the seats a better profile than the old 3 angle jobs used to. I kept the stock sized valves. These heads work really well and let the motor breathe up to about 6500 rpms. The increase in performance was noticeable and the cost was not much more than a std valve job. Main cost was from the air compressor, die grinder and porting bits ( which will be used again and again) Also some heads to look out for here in the classifieds on StangNet are the ones done by Thumper460, these, from what I've heard are also excellant and very cheap, compared to other heads.