I thinking of putting some eboch heads on my 390. Are these heads good as cast iron. I allready have the 428cj valves in my motor now. Is there an advantage with aluminum. Is there any other manufacture that makes heads for the FE. Ned any info.

justin

 

The advantages of aluminum is better heat disipation to allow for more compression on pump gas and they weigh much less. The ebrocks do flow better than the CJ heads but not by much. You may have problems with the heilicoils coming out of the casting if you over torque your bolts. Most everyone says that they need a valve job out of the box too. The disadvantage of aluminum is that they warp easily if overheated. There is another company I know of that makes heads for the FE but I hear they are very pricey. The name is Dove. Their phone number is 1-440-236-5139.

 

The stock iron heads with CJ valves and some port work can do very well. Giving up on a good set of iron heads for the $1,224+valve job Ed heads will not yield enough difference for the cost. Unless your looking for evey bit of power and already have a good intake, headers, cam, carb...

For a total cost in the $1,400 range I'd sooner convert to a 428 crank or if the old heads wern't ported & match I'd do that.

 

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 03-Oct-01 AT 05:54 AM (EST)[/font][p]Ratsmoker is right when he says that the aluminum is better cause you can run higher compresion ratio's. He is also right when he says they will warp easier. And the best way to avoid the helicoils coming out is to use studs. But I have to disagree with Karljay. The Ed heads are well worth the money in my book. The ed heads flow very good with some very mild port work. The power increase is unbelievable. And the cost of builing a set of good cast steel heads is close to if not over $800 for a port job, new hard seats, and a valve job. I t real breaks down to this speed cost's how fast can you afford to go.

 

Since we are talking about FEs and trucks, I don't care about the weight advantage, so I prefer sticking with cast. Sure, it will cost you nearly as much to get them to flow like an ebok, but they won't warp and you won't have heli-coils popping out like jack in the boxes. I'll take the durability with close to the same power gains, buts thats my preference.

If your knuckles ain't bleeding you did something wrong.

'72 F-250 "Hi-Boy" 4x4, Dana 60/HD44, FE428 @ 400+ ponies , NP435 4-speed, custom suspension w lift, mud on black.

 

I totally agree with you proeliator but for some crazy reason I am going to have to go with the ebrocks too. Just removed the valves today from mine and the guides are pretty badly worn. I don't care for aluminum heads and I completely despise edelbrock components with any moving pieces but I'm kind of stuck. I want about 450 streetable horsepower and the ebrocks are about the only way to go. For right now I am going to clean my old heads up and run them until I can comfortably fork over the 1250 bones.

 

Oh almost forgot. Anyone who wants to buy some rebuilt cast heads take a look at www.desertperformance.com . I don't know how good they really are but they sound good.

 

I installed a set of edlebrock 6006 heads on my 390 over a year ago with no problems.
I was worried about the helicoils comming out and put permatex anti seize on the header bolts. I shaved off the header gasket bite area on the flange and used those stock manifold gaskets
with silicon in the space between the port and the gaskets (the manifold gasket port holes are bigger than the ports). I used
20 ft/lbs on the bolts instead of the 35, but with the increased
area they have stayed sealed with no leaks. I used stainless bolts with 9/16" heads. Watch the length, you want to use as much of the threads in the bolt holes as possible but if you bottom out it will pull out the helicoil.
The pedistal bolts have to be shortened cause the bolt holes are not as deep as stock. Or washers added. You also have to shim the intake (I beleive it was the intake) rockers cause of a slightly wider valve centerline spacing. I found the shims at a local machine shop.
I had to grind down a socket to fit the head bolts (Iused the old ones). If I did it again I would buy the recommended ones from edlebrock.
It worked fine with the non-adjustable valve train that I have, although it seems from the Edlebrock info that you need the adj.
one, at least that's what I read into it.