heads

[the pope]

Building two 302's for early model broncos. bothe old mustang engines (302's) The heads are e7te's and e6se's. The e7te valves are noticibly bigger. I am bidding on some gt40 heads on ebay. Any suggestions? I would rather try to use the heads I have but want to go with the best case.. Thanks

[benshere]

The e7's are the std HO mustang heads. Although the t indicates they are truck heads. Someone else will have to pipe up about that.

The e6's were 1986 heads and were first used on the Marks and the 5.0 mustangs for 1 year. The e5te's were used starting in 85 on the trucks and are the same as the later e7's. My information (SVO mustang catalog and I also have a set) is that they have a smaller chamber (less CC's & heart shaped) and smaller ports. Although, in stock form, the 86 mustangs turned slightly better times with these heads, they are frowned upon because of no performance potential. The 86 H.O. engines which the heads came on had flat top pistons so the valves were actually slightly recessed in the head chamber. My info shows that the e6 heads are the "vanilla" head design used on all the later 302's, lincoln, Marqs, Crown vics etc. until the demise of the 5.0 engines.

To me, they look a lot like the GT-40P heads, except for the chambers, but I havnt closely compared the ports to the "P"s. I do have a set of P heads brand new and they get really good write ups for stock, steel performance.

Depending on your plans for the engine, I dont think you could go really wrong with either e6 or e7. In fact, for lower rpm pulling, the e6 might just be better. Next bet is to pick up a set of P's from a later model explorer, or even new from ford. After that, many opinions which is next Anyway, this is only my opinion! LOL

[the pope]

Thanks alot. Dont the p's require special headers? I have been doing some homework on the gt heads and everyone seems to recomend the straight gt-40's not the p's.. Thanks

[benshere]

I agree with them Yes the P's do require special headers. The motorsport shorties supposedly fit both, but stock headers dont. Actually the problem is the spark plugs on the P's stick almost straight out, which gives better chamber angle. Regular headers fit, but it puts plug wires very close to hot headers.

If you can get a set of regular 40's without having to leave your firstborn as partial payment, that would be better. If you are going to buy headers anyway and P's are cheaper then that would work. The P heads flow just as well as the regulars 40's. BTW, I have a 72 w/302 waiting on me to start work on.

[the pope]

I appreciate the info. I have two 74's and two 76's building three out of four lol. Time is the only problem i have lol. Have a good one....

[benshere]

Now I have a question for you Its off topic of this thread, but if you dont object, since you started the thread, then maybe I can get away with it!! If you do object, then I will, once again, crawl back into my lair.

I have asked this on other threads, but no real solutions except to find a good used door, which means a lot of expense in finding, purchasing and shipping. Here goes

The window frames on the 72 (and up) are welded to the door framework. Earlier ones were apparently separate pieces and bolted on the frame. Mine are seriously rusted at the frame joint and will have to be fixed.

I can see a way to take a metal bender and fashion a very close replica from a replacement strip of metal. Either that or find (if available) replacement frames for an earlier model and adapt. Or---find someone with a seriously rusted lower portion and have them cut out the frame part at the joint. None of the places I have looked show a metal OEM style or even a fiberglass replacement door that has a window frame. All are the "off-road" style 1/2 doors or similar.

Hope this dosnt screw up your thread. The window frame is my main unresolved concern, since almost everything else is available in glass or replica metal. TX

[the pope]

The 66 to 68 doors had removable frames. Your best bet would be to call jeffs bronco graveyard in michigan and see if they will send you some used good frames and then you can just weld them in. if your doors are in good shape. I have seen doors on ebay for as little as a hundred a piece though... I hope this helps if you have anymore questions feel free to ask..

[Boba Fett]

The best are aftermarket aluminium ones..... If you are worried about performance and on a budget don't even bother working with stock heads.... get aluminium ones for a thousand bux... way better value. When you consider how much you will spend to drop in stainless vlaxes, better springs.... you can get the FMS turbo swirl heads you can even run simple stock 5.0 bedestal rockers on them.... its like why bother with the iron ones?

That said... the best thing you can is build a 347 that has 9.0 compression with the heads you have and put al ones on later. It doesn't really matter what head you have on a 302... the 347 is going to stomp the piss out of if hands down in the RPM range you operate a Bronco in... and the torqe won't even be close. A 347 will bark a set of 35s in four wheel, a 302 not so much.

I am guessing these are roller blocks? If you are working on a budget I would run the stock roller cam and headsand rockers on a 347 and then uqgrade to AL heads with 1.7 rockers and stock cam. If you don't have roller blocks... run a roller cam with retrofit lifters.

If you just runs those engines stock... they will be fine too. Or you can build one with the best stock heads you can find, and then build the other a 347, and with the same cam the 347 will make the other engine seem silly....

That being said you can find a 351W and rebuild that... if it is a non roller 351W, use a roller cam and retrofit lifters and that will be even better because there is no machine charge for that operation and parts for that will be like 700 bux.


Before I get grilled here I will say to answer the question the best stock heads to run on a 302 are the 289 heads followed by the 70 351W head and 68 302 truck head that all have 58-62 CC chambers. Iron heads seem to run best with the small quench chamber.

The best cheapo 302s I have put together are real riggers that were accomplished with running a ring cutter around the top of the bore, flex honing the block, and re-ring on the cast valley of death pistons from the 70s Ford tortured their 302s with. Then I would put in a comp cams hydraulic stick with about .480 lift. The only machine shop charge I incurred was for re-doing the heads. For hauling and 4x4 work those engines ran really well. I hope this helps.

[RCrawler]

Originally Posted by the pope

The 66 to 68 doors had removable frames. .

The only catch is that the 68 doors are the only ones that will work with a 69-77 tub because the latches and locations are different on a 66-67.

If you are a good metal worker, you may be able to adapt the fixed frames to be removeable. I've seen it done, but I don't know the details or how long it would take.

I took a set of full doors and cut the frames off. And then glassed over the window channel. I had quick change pinned hinges that allowed a door swap in about 5 minutes. My thought is that it is inconvenient to carry around the door frames just for a rain storm. I just dealt with the weather if it changed until I could get home.

Jason