jthorn9

OK, I'm considering having my heads installed, and probably rebuilt, although I may do it myself if I can get enough info on how to do an install. I know I can do the Cobra intake, but the heads I'm a little leary on. But the shop I spoke to today that was going to do the install warned me of something I had not thought of. The shop owner is very knowledgeable about cars and asked me how many miles is on the engine. I told him 120K. He said that while he'd gladly do the install if needed, he warned me that some cars don't respond well to new heads on a high millage engine. He said that while having a brand new top end is a good thing, parts on the old bottom end may start to go such as bearing, rings, gaskets, etc. He said that when doing head swaps, especially when going with higher flow aftermarket heads, some engines don't like the added compression and will start to blow parts. He told me to ask you guys on the forums that had actually done head swaps to see if the Ford 5.0 is prone to this problem as he said that not all engines are.

So in short, to anybody that has more than 100K on the engine and did the h/c/i thing and didn't touch the engine block did you have any problems. If so, what, if not, what did you do exactly to maybe prevent this, or were you even aware of it?

If it's that big of a deal, then I will just port and install my Cobra intake, and be done with it until I can afford a new 347 stroker block next year, and then build that block with all the new parts.

jthorn9

bumping up.

VigCS

I put my GT40Ps on at 103,000 and I'm having no problems at all.

1991LX5.0

depending on what size chambers you get your compression will probably stay the same. I am just finishing up my H/C/I swap tomorrow and it really wasnt that bad and i did it 100% by myself and had never really dug into a motor before. Here is a good writeup on how to do the swap
http://www.allfordmustangs.com/techa...intakeswap.pdf

VigCS

Make sure you have extra money set aside for unforseen problems...I ran into several.

vtecwho

+ 1 on that one. i spend 1100 on my cam swap.... what can i say, i just needed to replace stuff to do it right. and i did it all by my self. radiator, rockers, gaskets.... it adds up VERY fast.

AdderMk2

swapping the GT-40's will not bump compression.... just increase flow

I'd say the mechanic is an idiot and you should do it yourself

jthorn9

Well he also doesn't know about the in depth info on the heads, he just wanted me to ask the question because like he said, some engines have the problem, some don't. In any since I might do the swap myself if I have the availible time. I know I can do the intake, with no problems, I'm just worried about some of the torque settings for the heads. Did you guys use a torque wrench to set the head torque, if so, what size did you guys use.

AdderMk2

1/2" click type torque wrench... NO extensions