my uncle has a pair of heads for a 70 boss 302. can i put these heads on my 88 302/5.0? its on the stand right now, later its going into my 96 ranger.

 

I have seen a 302 in a ranger before and the pass. engine valve cover is very close and will hit the heater box if not modified a bit. So a Boss 302 head will be taller and wider so my guess is it may not fit in your ranger very well? Also when running boss 302 heads you may need the boss 302 pistons for you motor or i should say the correct valve relief cuts in the pistons for boss heads or you may have a piston to vlave clearence problem.

IMO Unless you are running high rpm's the heads will be worthless on a truck.

 

the boss engine is different, the cooling passages are different and so are the positions of the intake and exhast ports. the boss 302 is similar to the cleavland engine.

If he has original boss heads i would tell him to sell them, big money.

 

The boss 302 heads have the same coolant passages. Its the Cleveland heads that have different coolant passages and if they were Cleveland heads you can have a little machine work done so the coolant passages will work on a 302 block. Don't forget the 302 block and a 302 boss block are the same with only two exceptions. One is the four bolt mains and the other is the bolt in freeze plugs.

I agree on selling them and maybe use the money for a good set of aluminum heads.

Of course the intake and exhaust ports are different. Thats what makes them boss heads. If one did install the boss heads on a 302 block you would only need to run a boss 302 intake and your good to go with that. Depending on your application headers would be a different story.

 

The boss head would not be good in daily driver Ranger truck, but would be great in full race 1/4 mile drag race truck. They have huge valves and ports, that produce virtually no low end tourqe. They make great power at high RPM. They breath well up to 8,000 RPM. You will need different pistons, a different custom intake manifold, and custom built big tube headers.

The Aluminum Trick Flow Twisted Wedge heads or the AFR 165's will flow just as well, bolt right on, and make excellant low end tourqe. Modern Aluminum heads are Much easier to do and give superior results.

Those Boss heads may be badly needed by a Boss 302 Mustang restorer or collector. Those guys will pay the price to get the original articles.