89blue5.0

I have an '89 AOD LX that the previous owner modified. It currently has a BBK cold air kit, 70mm MAF, 65mm throttle body, Trick Flow intake, E303 cam and MAC shorty headers with 2.5" exhaust. I have read on here that putting in that cam will give the car a nice idle sound (which it has) but won't do anything as far as performance without replacing the heads. If that is the case, what heads would be recommended? The car has leaking water and power steering pumps that are going to be replaced next week. This would be a good time to add another set of heads just don't know what to buy. I have heard a lot of good things about Trick Flow heads. They offer a Twisted Wedge head with 61cc chambers and 2.02 and 1.60 valves. Would I want something like this? When adding the heads, what else should I plan on changing? Go with 1.6 or 1.7 rockers? Timing chain? Thanks in advance.

jthorn9

Well both have to to come off to do a cam swap, but only the power steering pump has to come off to do the heads. A cam alone will add more power, however your stock heads may not fully (for sake we'll just say it will not) support the power and the range of performance the cam works in, so in short, you won't get the full potential out of the cam.

Always replace the timing chain when doing a cam swap, you're already there, and since it takes a little work to get to in the first place, might as well get it done and over, especially since it's probably never been touched since the car rolled out the factory years ago.

1.7 rockers seem to get mixed results on this site, some say they work, others say they're a waste, me I'm in between, I've seen dynos that support both arguments, personally I would get new rockers especially given how old the stockers are and how cheap they look to me (personal opinion here), but it's up to you if you want 1.7, 1.65, or stock 1.6.

That TF head is the supporting head for your intake, and is a decent choice, now just decide as to what cam you want and you're good to go.

mjr46

tfs tw 170cc as they have room to grow with different combos

Portmaster

I would suggest to Buy the TrickFlow Street Burner Kit. For the average joe it takes out all the guesswork, everything works and matches. The only thing you will need it tools, RTV and some time. It's as nice kit. There are ways to make more power by mixing up some parts but if you have little experiance it's the bomb. It comes with Heads, ARP head bolts, head gaskets, intake and lower, intake gaskets, intake bolts, Pushrods, Full roller rockers, Poly Locks ,Valve covers, valve cover gaskets and directions. Then sell off your other stuff to recoup some of your money.

89blue5.0

Thanks for the input. Portmaster, I looked at the TFS kits, but decided against it since the car already has a TFS intake and modified cam. Might have been a mistake, but we'll see. I ordered the TFS Twisted Wedge heads and TFS 1.6 rockers. I talked to several people locally today and most seemed to indicate with what my car has on it now that the new heads will really open things up and that I should see a huge difference. Does that sound about right? I have this car looking really good since buying it a couple of months ago and now I'm ready to do something to it in order to back up its looks.

mjr46

glad to see you took the advice, the tfs heads can be ported out in the future to really open up more possibilities

Portmaster

Sounds good....

BlessedHellride

make sure to check your pushrod length to make sure your valve train geometry is correct.

89blue5.0

Thanks for all the input. Yeah Mjr, I figured putting these nice heads on now will allow me to use them down the road when it is time for a new short block. I figured that the whole pushrod geometry thing would be critical and replacing these heads is a little bit bigger of a job than I'm comfortable doing. Because of that I plan on having someone more familiar with this work to do it for me.

92hatchLX

Might I suggest something that might feel like you added another 100 ft lbs of torque and is going to make the car perform a lot better? Click the link below

http://www.edgeracingconverters.com/...&products_id=2

I would highly suggest getting a custom made torque converter for your car. Out of all of the mods I've done with my AOD car this and the supercharger changed the performance the most. A nice TC and the mods that you have will make a bad *** street/strip car. Sorry to get a little off topic but I thought I'd throw this your way. You'll definitely thank me later! Your tires won't though