I am going to be getting a Camshaft and Heads soon. However I dont know much about them. I just started to research this topic. It would help to have some good leads though. I will be driving my car almost daily (I will be inherating a dialy driver from my grandma soon because her eyse are going). I would like to know what I should get (breand and style) and what my expected gains might be, as well as drawbacks. I'm sure its posteed somewhere on this forum, but this is easier, to start with since I dont have anymore time to search before work.

 

well if you want to do it, and have the money to do it.....
I would say get stage 2 heads/cams....for cams go VT, for heads...i dont know what year mustang you got but i would probably just get a stage 2 port and polish, and upgrade to bigger vavles...
also with the larger cams you'll need need cam springs...so i would get
Stage 2 cams from VT, Port & Polish stage 2, hi lift springs, new retainers, and oversized vavles....probably good for 35hp if not a little more. Then i would look to open up the exhaust Long tube headers, o/r midpipe, catback
Jimbo

 

The heads are expensive... granted so are the cams (by the way there are 2 cams... 1 over each head) cams go around $700 + $500 in labor to install, heads are like... over 1ka peice... there very expensive... plus you would have to pay who knows how much labor for a shop to uninstall/install.

Edit - forgot to mention $200 for cam springs.

 

Lots and lots of money.. and the gains arn't all that great on a n/a stock shortblock car.

IMO its best to just do cams, and wait for the heads when you can do a shortblock. Even if you do the h/c now, and then shortblock later, it will leave you wanting, simply because the cams/heads you can run now that will result in the best gains won't be the best setup for a car with the increased RPM of a aftermarket shortblock.

You can make 280-290 WHP on the stock heads with boltons + cams. For another 1300+ for a set of heads (plus install, gaskets, etc) your only going to go up to around 310-320 WHP... imo not worth it.

 

I have a 2003 GT with longtube headers, o/r h-pipe and magnaflow catback, and a K&N cold air intake. I think I'll just go witht the cam then. Would I need to do anything else improtant to my car so that it can handel the camshaft?