Need new heads - Trick flow or ported stockers?

[Black2010]

I've been doing some research on these and it seems like nothing ever pops up on them that's newer than 2011 and all the threads I find are arguments over numbers. How well does the head and cam kit perform now that (hopefully) more people have them on their car. I'm not looking for a street racer car but don't want to waste money either.

The reason I'm looking at heads vs FI right now is because I'm sick and tired of listening to my car's head ticking. Drives me nuts so now I'm in the market for heads and if I'm going to spend that much time changing heads out I'd like to upgrade (if it's worth it).

Right now the engine is all stock minus a K&N FIPK and a Basanni Catback.

My thought was getting the Trick Flow head and cam kit as well as a plenium/TB upgrade along with some 3.73's and a tune. Hoping all that would make the car more fun to drive while getting rid of the nasty ticking.

But.... If anyone knows how to get rid of the tick without replacing the head I'd love to do that and then just go FI. Tick is in the drivers side head. Passenger side is nice and quite.

 

[ImThatGuy]

5.0 or 4.6? Get the kit regardless, porting stock heads is worthless. Trickflow top end kits match to each other to work well. Not too bad of a fun daily driving street car. Who cares about numbers, if its fun and runs good, thats what matter most IMO.

 

[Black2010]

It's a 4.6. I should have specified it was in my 02 GT convertible. My wife and I have been debating on selling it and buying something else. We both are now leaning towards just making it more fun. Our other mustangs are our 04 Cobra (stock minus lowering springs and catback) and our 2010GT with the full Roush 427 conversion done (not certified as I did the work myself). We'd like for the 02 to be competitive with our other two stangs as we are happy with the performance of both of them.

 

[SILVER_SVT_GT]

Screw the heads. Want that 4.6 to be competitive with an 04 cobra and a Roush 427? Your gonna need more than heads. You need to go F/I for sure. And some 4.10s

Just my $0.02...

 

[Fireman786]

Heard some good things of trick flow heads and the heat track trick flow intake manifold..

 

[KLeech]

Why not just put some stock heads back on it? I guess I’ve never really heard much about 2v heads having any issues just the 4v cars.

In the long run the trickflow heads will benefit you greatly, once you add forced induction. For the time being trickflow heads and cam will not make that car competitive with either of your other cars. Unless you plan to add some serious power to the car (boost) I think you will be unhappy with the amount of money you will spend on that trickflow stuff if you leave the car like that.

You can pretty easily put another stock head/heads on the car and buy a blower for damn near the same money and have a car that is much more fun to drive and competitive. A good setup blown 2v, with 3.73’s and drag radials makes for a great driver and stout opponent for a lot of things out there.

P.S. Porting the stock heads is not worthless, although I think the money spent on those is better spent on a set of aftermarkets. But again, it’s all about what you really want.

 

[geoffmt]

If its just a tick, its more than likely the lifters. No need for new heads with just that, but...you cant go wrong with the trick flow top end kit. Nice sounding idle, 385-390 hp. That's right at stock 03-04 cobra hp(yes I know the tq is different). If you decide to go forced induction at a later time, you have an amazing base to start with with trick flow.
I have a set of MMR ported Trick flow(44cc) on a twin turbo build that I hope to have finished in a month or two. cant wait!

 

[Stanger00]

I think the trickflow track heat 185 heads with 38cc chambers on your stock long block with a cam will be a lot of fun. The compression bump alone will make it more snappy and responsive in all Rev ranges no matter the cam you decide on. Yeah, power may not meet what a blower can do but with 330-340hp to the wheel from out of the box heads and cams is nearly 100hp gain over stock at the wheels.

I have TFS heads and they were milled. 010" due to blowing a motor. So they went from 44cc to whatever probably 41cc I think 3cc is the general rule of thumb for that. A similar motor was built like mine but with patriot stage 3 heads. Everything else was basically the same. I made 40 more horsepower. These heads work and they are not fluff. If you can find them used and are in great shape pick up a set.

 

[Black2010]

If its just a tick, its more than likely the lifters. !

Can you elaborate on this a bit? I would rather spend the money on FI but I just can't stand the ticking anymore thus why I turned to looking at the TF heads. Figured if I was going to spend good money on heads that I might as well upgrade them at the same time. I've done so much research about the valve tick and I only come up with stuff for the cobra's and everyone seems to agree it can't be fixed without replacing the heads. If I can fix this head I'd love to so that I could look at a Tork Tech or Paxton kit for the car.

 

[Black2010]

Why not just put some stock heads back on it?

I thought about this as well. The tick is in the drivers side head but I figured it wouldn't be a good idea to just replace one head. Looking at the cost to replace 2 heads it looked like it was going to be about $1400 in parts (heads, gaskets, bolts).

This is pretty close to how mine sounds. Mine is just not nearly as bad as his though so I guess things could be worse.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2nm0IjqCNE&list=UU-8AMLV9wnlAztjNlrqEu1A

 

[decipha]

If your dead set on taking the heads off, I'd recommend just tossing a set of trick flow 44s on it, I've never heard of anyone that wasn't happy with them

 

[geoffmt]

If one of the lifters fails or bleeds down, it will cause a valve tick. If it was my car, you are half way torn down to replace the lifter, why not throw in the 38cc trick flow heads. yes its costs, but it will waken up your 2v to a whole new animal. It will be an added plus when you finally do go FI

 

[Stanger00]

If your dead set on taking the heads off, I'd recommend just tossing a set of trick flow 44s on it, I've never heard of anyone that wasn't happy with them

Why the 44s? That will keep compression stock. May as well get the bump up in compression with 38cc. Run the calculators and see what static compression will be with a standard bore, stroke and 17cc dished (stock) piston with 0.035" gasket and roughly 0.004 deck height. Will probably be close to 11:1.

I'm around 9.6-9.7:1 with 44cc heads after they were milled. Scary running 16lbs of boost with 91 octane and that much compression. Get pings every now and then.

 

[decipha]

Im pretty sure the OP wants to boost it later, at least thats what it sounded like to me in the OP when he said heads vs FI (right now).

 

[y2k2gt]

I run ported 38cc TF heads. The TF heads need cams ground for them, not just regular pi cams.
Even the TF cams were made for PI heads not the TF heads.

 

[Stanger00]

I run ported 38cc TF heads. The TF heads need cams ground for them, not just regular pi cams.
Even the TF cams were made for PI heads not the TF heads.

Could you provide more details of why they need a specific grind?

Do they like higher lift? Lobe separation angle greater or lesser than a PI grind? Duration?

 

[y2k2gt]

https://www.lmengines.com/trick-flow-tfs-fmod-1-camshaft-cylinder-head-issue/

 

[Stanger00]

That is quite a study. I wonder why the engineers at TFS didn't think about this when they designed these heads. It seems pretty obvious that timing and centerline issues would result with the new pivot location of the intake valve.

I wonder if TFS cams are built for their heads and they are not benefitting those who install in PI heads.

 

[y2k2gt]

http://www.moddedmustangs.com/forums/99-04/559881-important-info-guys-running-tfs-heads.html

 

[Stanger00]

Thanks for posting this. I'm not a member there and I recognize names and those have yet to post in corral.

Well this is screwed up. My car made decent power for a maxed vortech v2 Si but the fact that I paid someone to assemble my motor and degree the cams really passes me off that they didn't catch this or if they even checked exhaust timing to verify it matched the cam card. I run the TFS cam and I got the same crap about a tight driverside chain and its due to how the cam is positioned. It appears it happens due to the ramp rate and when the passenger side is at TDC the driverside is actually starting to get tension from the lobe. If I am understanding this right.

To be honest this was 4 years ago. I was pretty retarded when it came to understanding all of this and after a few years of QC at a diesel engine remanufacturing shop I learned a lot.