heads question

there are tons of heads better than the GT-40 aluminums...but for the price of a set of Y-303's (can be had for $700) you can't beat them, unless you get a killer deal on a set of Edelbrocks, AFR's, or TW's.

any of those will make good power, and with a good exhaust, a cam, intake, carb, etc...and some gears will put that little "slug" right up next to your Z...

biggest downfall is that the '84's have low compression cast pistons (8.4:1)...and you'll have to run a flat tappet cam if you want to install a new one, since the '84 is one year model prior to the first roller blocks...unless you convert to roller with either the expensive locking bar lifters, or running a smaller base circle cam. At any rate, you can make reliable power with the car and have fun doing it. I also suspect you'll find out that working under the hood of that '84 (depsite all the smog equipment) is much easier to work on compared to the engine bay of your Z...

oh yeah, another thing, if you do end up putting gears in it, you might wanna seek out an 8.8 rear out of an '86-98 'stang or a turbo coupe t-bird or even a MK7...the stock 7.5" rear in the '79-'86 'stangs are not known for their strength (I broke my original)

what year Z do you own? LT1 or LS1..?

y not go crazy with it? Mustang parts are cheap!

Y-303's are the cheapest iterration of aluminum GT-40 heads-there are a few places on ebay that sell them as crate motor pulls-unused-for like $650-$700...

I dunno if Magnaflow makes an exhaust for '84's, but my advice (this is what I did to my '84) upgrade it to 86-93 style duals, you'll need a double hump tranny crossmember, and all the hangers from an '86-up GT...Mustangs Unlimited used to sell a kit that had all the hangers you'd need to swap from early to late model exh. you can run all the stock style exh parts with no clearance issues.

...silly tree huggers

your '71 'maro must not have had A/C for it to be that easy to work on...every f-body I've ever helped a friend work on was a PITA on the passenger side cuz of that damn A/C plenum

...I'm sure with your Dad being a Ford guy, watching racing events must be a blast...lol

wow, i bet holidays are a grand ol' time! the summit ad your talking about is indeed the Y heads, but for $530 you only get one head-if you'd like to get those particular heads, then go with ebay, there are a few sellers that either pull them from crate motors and sell them as unused, or all the sellers are trying to get rid of stock to make room for the X and Z heads from FRPP.

there's also a gent on here going by Thumper460 that sells stock ported E7TE heads for $600 that are MUCH better than the boat anchor D8OE's that are sitting on your Dad's '84...trust me they are junk.

if you change to the later model exh setup, yes, you'd have to acquire a stock type h-pipe with cats (not counting out the aftermarket versions which are available), and an '86-'93 style cat back...and while you're at it, for goodness sake, nix the stock log type manifolds...they're ugly, and useless except for a doorstop. There are easily 10 aftermarket manufacturers of shorty headers for fox body mustangs, and they will get you an easy 10-15hp for cheap.

start researching the threads on here, you'll find more than enough info and opinions on several ways to inexpensively modify a fox body 'stang-including the four-eyed foxes