proven combo's
 

well, I have recently bought a freshly rehuilt (.20) over 92 5.0 H.O. engine. the current engine in my car is a 74 302 (.30) over but has dished pistons, so the compression is not as I as I would have liked it to be. The heads are 69 or 70 castings 302 with larger stainless steel valves, but with no porting. I bought the heads during my younger days when I believed bigger was better.

I have been watching on here and have been impressed with the results everyone has gotten by carefully choosing their combos, many times using stock e7's. So, here is the question.
The fresh H.O. motor, with e7te's ported and polished, and a stock cam with a performer rpm intake and 600 holley 4 barrel. OR do I put the bigger valves in the e7te's and run an alpha cam....mild one, but bigger then stock. I have considered the gt40p's, but then have to change my exhaust around, so the price goes up significantlly for that head swap. I see no benefit of running my earling casting head's, do to what I have read showing that the e7te's are a better design.

I know a set of aluminum aftermarket heads are the thing to do, but not this year, I aslo have a restored truck and my dirt bike to take care of.....so a little at a time. I would be very happy to get the car into the mid thirteen's, but not sure if this will do it. Kinda need the car to rev fairly high, cause the car is revvin hard with the 4.10's as I cross the line in third.

the combo will be bolted to my current setup- built aod, shift kit, 2800 stallion, 4.10's trac loc, full length headers to 2 1/4 exhaust, fully funtional ram air (almost finished), electric fan set-up, power pullies, and maybe an electric fuel pump. The car weighs around 3100 pounds with me in it.
thanks all for your help with this combo,
Ryan

keep the e7 and stock cam with the intake and your other mods in that 65 you should be able to hit the 13's as long as you have traction. who is gonna do the port and polish on the e7's? if your gonna do it then i'd say go ahead but i wouldn't pay anyone if in a year or 2 you are gonan change heads.

a guy who has built fords for years is gonna help me port the heads. So I am not really gonna be out all that much money. Is it worth the money putting larger valves in the e7's? It looks to me lots of guys on here are running good times with the stock valves.
Ryan

i'd stay with the stock valve size. i went 13.5@101 with stock e7's, cobra intake, stock cam and headers in my 93 lx.

mid - thirteens to me for this car, would be awesome. I think I will keep the stock valves in the heads, just port and polish them a little bit.
thanks for the hlep,
Ryan

Keep the stock valves for sure. The E7's are not the best flowing heads so you have to make HP my moving the air at a high velocity.

I liked my old combo better than my new one. It was much more streetable and felt way stronger in the low rpms.

I used to have ported and milled E7's
Explorer intake.
and the stock cam

Went 13.66 @102 in a full weight 88GT vert.

thanks for the help dark_5.0, sounds like the bigger is not always better principle applys to the e7's also. Sounds good to me, will keep the price of the heads down for this year until I can afford some aluminum ones. I am considering some of the "thumper" heads, they are reasonable for the price, I am just not sure the extra money is worth it to have him do the work vs. me. I am sure his will be better, just not sure how much.
Ryan

last question:
Since the car has 4.10's, I am spinning the motor pretty hard as I cross the line. will the stock springs be ok with the stock cam? Or do I need to put stud mounted rockers in the e7's and heavy duty springs to keep from pulling out a stock pedastal rocker...also to prevent floating the valves???
thanks,
Ryan

With a set of 4.30s in my car and a stock 5.0 motor with a cobra intake on it my car went 12.50 @ 107. Before that with more weight in the car I had a motor with E7s with a port job and big valves the same intake as now and a B cam. that went 12.30s at 110.