Old Mustanger

One more thing, since you used sand paper (not recommended) to clean the decks of the block, you will need to clean up the cylinder bores very well.
Sand paper sacrifices "sand" as it works, and this abrasive material will not play nice with your soft aluminum pistons or your cylinder walls.

When you R&R heads, you should only use a scraper type tool so the chunks of gasket material can be vacuumed out. Plus, these kinds of tools do not sacrifice metal during the process.

NickP87

Old Mustanger- thanks for the advice. I used cleaner, shop towels, & a vacuum to clean out the bores. I made sure to get everything out of the cylinders. I also picked up a gasket scraper today, as well as a valve spring compressor (rented).

The AutoZone valve spring compressor is a POS.

The valves were stock but the springs were not. They're quite a bit thicker & taller than the stock E7 springs so I'm in the process of switching those right now. I'm debating on whether or not to replace the vale stem seals since everything is apart right now. I guess it'll depend on whether or not a parts store can have them for me by tomorrow.

NickP87

Maybe why I was getting some blue smoke & burning some oil?




Old head vs stock head. I'm pretty sure the ones on the left are aftermarket.

jon-95gt

hey I have a related question;
I have a 95 GT that i'm going to be putting new heads on tomorrow or Tuesday. they're still E7TE heads but they've been ported and polished to the fel-pro 1250 gasket(2"tall,1.6"wide) and have 5 angle valve jobs and blueprinted valve stems.

jon-95gt

sorry my computer spazzed, but my question is, will my stock pushrods be able to handle the dual spring comp cam springs that i'll be running? they run about 121lbs closed and 343lbs open. they have a spring rate of 370lbs/inch also...don't want to end up bending a rod!