How much to port and polish gt40 heads??

[83countrysquire]

Thinking when i get my heads I want to do it just wondering how much it should cost by a shop I heard you can screw the heads up if you do them wrong...

[jayh]

if you cant do them yourself or know someone who can do them on the side, dont bother; for what it will cost, you can get a much better head aftermarket

[83countrysquire]

alright maybe i ll try myself. But if not what heads would you suggest?

[johnunit]

http://www.mustangcentral.net/tech/e7.html There's a sizable difference between E7 and GT40 heads, but skim this and see if you think it's do-able. The difficulty level and general techniques should be similar for GT40 heads.

After reading this and a few other writeups, I've been more or less convinced that porting my stock E6 heads (supposedly almost as good as e7's?) is within my ability.

[Pirate]

Buy a better set of heads. So far as recommendations go....I'd leave the GT40's alone and use them for now.

[91grandmarquis]

I was wondering this as well, if it was worth it to machine the gt40s I have and have them ported or just sell them and spend a bit more on aluminum heads (probably a lot a bit but whatever).

[Lincolnmania]

by the time you buy used gt40's and have the valve job done, then have them ported and polished and surfaced, and valve springs (if explorer gt40's) it's not worth it unless you got a buddy or an inexpensive machine shop (mine closed up, he was half of what the other guys wanted......he replaced a couple guides, did a valve job, surfaced, ported the bowls and assembled the gt40p heads on toms vic for 250)......paid 300 to have a few guides, valve job and surfacing on a set of gt40 heads recently at another local shop.........save your money or run stock heads.......i like my thumper e7's and think they were well worth the money, but i'm sure i'll get flamed for reccomending them lol

[1987cp]

Buy a better set of heads. So far as recommendations go....I'd leave the GT40's alone and use them for now.

+1, there is a significant school of thought these days that any money spent on ported stock heads is money wasted. Actually, taken to an extreme that means that any money spent on any stock head, period, is money wasted. Keep in mind that for about $1300 or $1400 you can buy all the head your engine will ever need, that can help keep things in perspective while being nickel and dimed to death on reconditioning.

That said, a set of OK stock heads for near free with a mill and valvejob for $200, going on an engine that will never see modifications beyond the level of an Exploder intake and shorty headers, is probably an OK deal as long as you don't actually expect much from them. (This is where I got in trouble with my GT40-headed engine; I want actual power, and now find I have some actual money tied up in junk that doesn't really do much!) The more I read about how easy it is to make airflow worse instead of better, combined with ways in which experienced professionals can manage to misinterpret or misrepresent flowbench data, the less interested I am in spending a lot of my limited wrenching time trying to wring 10 more horsepower out of my stock garbage and then spending even more money cobbling together a home flowbench which probably won't give me anything in the way of useful data anyway.

[jayh]

[jayh]

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d183/kennebellcobra/gt-40-1.jpg

[1987cp]

That does look pretty nice! Is that a home port/polish job?

[1980c10]

You can get a set of assembled trick flow high ports for 1200, why not just save a few pennies and do something like that?

[import convert]

or a set of iron rhs bare heads with large valves for 330 a head if you really want to be cheap.

i think if you want to do it as an expirience and see how it works out then go for the porting but yea you can do more harm then good if youre not carefull. its not really a stupid thing to do (IMO) but yea youll never get the gains youd get out of an after market set of heads. i guess porting is only worth it if you have some sort of common sense and will do it yourself.

and yea i know some people will say im worng too but its all good

[jayh]

That does look pretty nice! Is that a home port/polish job?

yes thats a home port job; its not mine though, its cut and pasted from somewhere else to give an idea what a decent home port looks like.
car weighs 3275, goes 11.50's@115, makes 340ishrw

[packman]

Yeah, if you have no other option or on a tight budget, then I would port and polish the heads. Other than that, there are sooooo many better alternatives.


Packman