I am looking to build a 351 to replace my 302. I have heard a lot about the P heads and I want a set for my engine. I would like to find a pair of bare castings and assemble them myself. I can't find a bare set anywhere but yet I hear of people buying them bare. I few places used to sell them bare, but have stopped. If anyone knows of a source please let me know. thanks.

 

Greetings! You can get a set of GT40P heads, bare, at Central Coast Mustang for $269. The phone number is 1-661-823-2400, 436 North Curry, Tehachapi, California, 93561. They are even open Saturdays til 2:00 (pacific) THey are about the cheapest I have seen lately. Hope this helps.

 

Question: Are you leaving the rest of the engine pretty much alone? The Mustang crowd likes the GT40P's, but that's on their 302's. For a 351 making any sort of serious power I'd think you would want something a bit bigger, like maybe AFR 185's or Twisted Wedge's.
Just a thought. A set of E7's lightly ported will outflow GT40P's.
Anyway, just a thought. If you're in it for a budget build-up, go with the "P" heads. They're better than stock. If money's not an issue, then look into something a bit better in the area of flow.
My humble opinion.
Later,
Ben

 

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 01-Mar-02 AT 01:21 AM (EST)]Heres what I figure- 1. for a little over $100 a head I have a new casting I don't have to worry about a warped or cracked head.
2. I won't have to clean around on a set of old greasy heads
3. New head, new valves springs, fresh valve seat-all good
4. No air injection boss in the GT40 - I'll be getting rid of that setup so I won't need the provision on the head and I won't have to plug an old head.
5. It's a truck engine I won't greatly benefit from the weight savings of an aluminum head, that being the one advantage of aluminum, I won't have to deal with the draw back of Al if I keep iron. These draw backs being: easily striped theads -plugs and elsewhere, warpage, head gasket retention, the loss of combustion efficiency through heat transfer, and bringing me to the biggest reason-
6. cost, this is a budget engine, nothing real fancy, but done right, and built to run 100,000+. I want performance but not at the sacrifice of reliability. I want to assemble this thing and never see the internals again. You can't hardly get a stock reman head of questionable quality at a parts store for this price. Let alone one that will give a boost in power and torque.

7. flow numbers-from http://home.isoa.net/~mharrisj/fordhead.html

head Int. .500 lift Ex. .500 lift
GT40P 196cfm 142cfm
E7 164cfm 114cfm
E7 ported w 2.02/1.60's 217cfm 175cfm
69 351W 4V 181cfm 114cfm
World jr. 186cfm 154cfm
Near as I can figure a good port on the "p" should make a great street head, stock it ain't too bad, against some heads that cost much more. P's ain't no big race head but they don't carry a reace head price either. There are better, but few are in the P price range.

8. Flow numbers lie- somewhat, the quality of flow is important too, the "p" flows as good as heads with much larger valves, this means that for the same flow rate the "p" is moving air faster, which means velocity - which equals torque, which is what I want.
9. If even a light port helps these out as much as it does most heads I'll be that much better off.

There is the header issue, If motorsport worded their catalog correctly their truck stainless shorties should fit. If not I'll use a mustang P specific header and get my exhaust custom made. There should be plenty of room to play with in a full size trucks engine bay.
For something wilder, yes I would probably need something more, or a supercharger to ram the intake into the engine.
I could be wrong but it looks good to me for what I'm doing.

 

Gt40p heads are stock on ford explorers.You could probaly find a junkyard set and rebuild them.

Billy

 

Believe me I tried, if you can find a V8 explorer most likely it is still a low mileage engine. That means its worth more to the salvage yard to be sold as a complete engine, or a core, rather than picking parts off it. If you can find one and they will let you pick around on the engine, do it. Also get the intakes, they would be a bear to make fit on a truck, but someone with a 5.0 mustang would be interested in them because they are almost identical to the cobra version, that and the wrecker probably just sell them for scrap aluminum after they set around for awhile.