I just learned today that my 302 has two different cylinder heads (which explains why it's always run weird). It was a cheap rebuilt motor and it's been in there for a long time, and I've been wanting to make some major modifications to it. We also have a '65 Mustang with a 302 that my dad's swapping out for a 5.0 roller motor with GT40 heads, so I get the old 302 that was in it. We also have frozen a 351W and the heads from that. The '65's old motor has slightly dished pistons with two small valve reliefs, I'm unsure of their material. My current 302 has flat stock pistons, and I haven't checked what kind of mismatched heads it has but my guess is they're crappy since it was a cheap rebuilt block. The heads that are available to me are: -C90E-G's from the 351W (60.4cc, my valve measurements are 1.85/1.54) -C9TE-C's from the '65's motor (58.2cc, valves measured 1.77/1.46) -Or I could find another set of GT40's (I think 63-66cc, 1.84/1.54) I also have an extra roller cam, but no roller rockers or lifters. My questions are: -Should I swap out my entire motor so I can get those special pistons and a slightly less worn block, is it worth it? -I was thinking I would use the 351W heads and port out that lump that I've read about, but what do you guys think? The GT40's are lighter but I would have less compression, especially if I used the dished pistons and the cast iron is more rugged. -Should I swap to the roller cam at the expense of needing to buy and swap the other top end parts? Thanks!
Believe it or not, I was warned about this problem when I was very young. I just thought it was a myth.
http://www.maverick.to/mmb/showthread.php?t=74497&highlight=351+heads&page=2 This lump. Also, that was my thought in terms of the power increase since the valves are significantly larger.
Just buy one of these: http://www.summitracing.com/parts/FMS-M-6007-X302/ You have to spend more money to rebuild an existing engine to the specs of one of these.
What's going to cost $4k rebuilding an already fairly good engine? I'm not trying to build a race engine, just something with some good get-up with parts I mostly already have.
Get a pair of GT40s if you can, if its affordable get them milled down a bit. If milling is expensive in your neck of the woods get aftermarket pistons that will bump up the comp ratio to 9.0-10.5. Hyper pistons are cheap for these engine. If you wanna go roller give http://deltacam.com/ a call/email, they can grind you a cam on a small base circle that will fit in your vintage block. They have the ford alphabet cams also if you want one of those profiles. Delta is the cheapest place to get a custom cam grind. For the lifters you can get some sets at the junkyard and have them checked out, also the spider assembly. Shouldn't be more than $40. I've picked up 4 sets of roller lifters and only 1 was bad out of 32.
mav75: I don't want to run too high a compression or run premium fuel and I'm pretty sure these pistons are hyper already. I may stroke this engine in the future so I'm keeping compression down in the meantime. And I think I already have a roller cam that will fit this block, but I may give Delta a try. Around here there are absolutely no roller motors in junkyards so grabbing lifters might be an issue. Are '96-'97 Explorers rollers? Coolvettes: Awesome I'm excited.
351W heads are a waste of money, and more work to install. Stock GT40 heads flow the same, and can be found cheaper. If you just want to keep your bottom end, just find some heads. Around here, if I take an engine to the machine shop, I'm into it for close to 3 grand, with out a cam.
Eh. It's a case of "Your mileage may vary" I guess. I'm going to be fuel-injecting this engine so with that shaved lump, those heads, and my headers along with maybe my E303 cam I'll have a pretty peppy machine. What kind of power does a standard like '87 Mustang 5.0 put out?
A 87 5.0L mustang was 225, pretty lame compared to what we have now. My wife's Escape is a V6, and it's 225, and lighter than a Maverick. Would be sad to see someone whoop a Maverick in the 1/4 mile with a soccer Mom's 4 dr Escape...
That would be pretty sad indeed. Theoretically my budget power V8 should outdo an Escape XD Though, Escapes in Europe are called "Mavericks".
I doubt it, everyone always thinks that, then when they show up at the dyno, they are pushing 165...seen it first hand.
What I've read through searching is that without removing the lump in the heads there are very little gains, but still some. Why would an engine only produce 165? Maybe his motor was out of tune in other ways?
