Hi, ok I'm a little off today and need some help.
It's been a long time since I've dealt with big block Ford applications. I have 460 heads, casting # D3VE-A2A. I know these are out of a 79 truck, but I don't know and haven't found the specs for the heads or the engine. ( compression, hp, head runner size etc.) I didn't think it would be that hard to the find specs. To what extreme can I work the heads, or should I go with after markets? Are there any good books on the subject?
Thanks for your help.

 

The heads are out of a Lincoln or T-Bird

Truck would be D3TE-AA

What specs are you looking for?

Dennis

"Please Don't Ask Me Any Tough Questions As I'm Saving My memory For When I Develop Alzheimer's"

1978 F-150 429CJ 4v,C6 Silver w/explorer package
1968 Mustang 289-2v Sunlit Gold 80,892 miles
1964 1/2 Mustang 260,Pre-World's Fair Car.
1964-Fairlane 500 S/C
Soon to be with a 390-4 spd.

 

Those heads are the average run of the mill 460 heads. Nothing special when stock. You can wake them up quite a bit with some port work. MPG heads in Colorado does CNC machining on Ford big block cast iron heads. He can get some pretty impressive numbers out of those old heads, especially when used with his port plates. Aftermarkets are good, especially Edelbrock and Blue Thunder. Ford Racing's Cobra Jet heads aren't bad either. However, none of those heads can be obtained for the relatively small amount of money it would take to totally work your heads over. You should be able to get the heads cut out for larger CJ valves, new valves, springs, retainers, and the port work for around $1000 or less. That's going to be a savings of about $700 over aftermarket heads.

JJ

 

Bigsnag's right about using those heads. For a truck application, lower rpm torque band with apropriate cam specs, when done right they actually perform better than aftermarket heads with big intake runners and ports designed for high rpm applications. The smaller intake runners/ports actually develop better fuel/air mixture velocity from off-idle through the lower rpm range.

On that subject, I've heard from a couple of sources I respect that there's no reason to go to 2.24" intake valves in the earlier heads. 2.19" will do the job. I haven't seen any flow figures, (I'd appreciate any references to early head flow numbers)but they say there's virtually no difference in lower rpm/high torque applications.