newb with head/cam questions

[screamin gt]

Hi - just found the site, searched and found alot of what I need to know...

heres the questions... If I were to replace the head/cam on one side and not the other (with origional equip. of course) would that cause any problems or should it be fine?

reason: just bought a 99 with a bad cam/head (or maybe valve tapping) but anyway being new to the 4.6 world, someone told me the 99-00 were not PI and I would be much better of replacing the motor with an 01-04 instead of fixing this one. so anyway found out 99-04 are all PI heads, so why not just replace whats broken and call it a day.

motor has about 100,000 miles but seems to run fine other than the klanking noise coming from the driver side valve cover.

picked it up for $3700 it's pretty mint except the motor. also I'm not planning on building it at all, just want to drive it. been there/done that with my old 5.0, then it just sat in the garage till it came time to sell. I have a bike for when its time to go fast

heres a couple pics...

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j102/badaszx9r/100_3784.jpg

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j102/badaszx9r/100_3786.jpg

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j102/badaszx9r/100_3788.jpg

 

[DBMSTNG]

there are some differences in 99-00 windsor heads and 01-04 romeo heads. nothing from a performance standpoint tho. one has press fit cam gears and the other doesn't. also the valve cover bolt patterns are different. i'm not 100% positive, but the front cover bolt pattern may be different between the heads.

 

[modmonster]

My advise would be to pull off the head first and make sure that it is a bent valve(which more often than not seems to be the problem with these cars)Sorry backtrack do a compression check on the side that you think it is coming from. Then if you have to pull the head and look over the head cause it may not have messed it up as well as the piston in which you are hearing that noise. Of course I would only do that if the sound was a definate problem making a pretty distinct tapping noise and the more rpm you give it the faster it taps. Not to hard of a fix either way just time consuming with all the stuff you have to remove to get the head off I would at least check that out before buying your parts though if time permits cause it could cost less that it sounds but you never know. I bent a valve in the #8 cylinder and all I had to replace was a couple valves. Not much money but very time consuming.

 

[screamin gt]

thanks for your time guys, that seems like the best way to go. I do tend to jump the gun a little buying parts that I may not even need

 

[modmonster]

best of luck to ya man