Engine Pi Heads Or Upgrade Stock

[Tom Hood]

I recently bought a 96 Mustang gt 5 speed mostly stock except for Pypes x-pipe and a Bbk cai,Bassani mufflers,and Msd coils,Sct 93 octane tune,I'm getting ready to put on Bbk shorty headers,Bbk78mm throttle Body Plenum. My question is i'm wanting to do the heads but not mess with cutting on the pistons should I go with 01 4.6 heads or have mine rebuilt with better components my budget is 2,200. Your feed back would be greatly appreciated. Thank you

 

[wmburns]

Tons of PPL have put PI heads on a non-PI block without changing the pistons. Why do you feel it's necessary to cut the pistons?

 

[vertigasen]

Mr. wmburns is right, as usual. This is been done 1000s of times, and it works well. The CR increase from PI heads is pretty decent. Add a set of cams that DOES NOT require you to cut the pistons, I recommend calling Modular Head Shop and talking to Nick. Doing a full PI swap with PI intake will be a decent car. With the money left, get rear gears, 3.73 or 4.10s, then a good dyno tune and call it a day. That would feel like a completely different car.

PI head swap from a wrecked PI car - Between $300-$500 for all parts needed.
Cams - $600 degree'd
Gears, installed - ~$400
Dyno Tune - $400
BBK 78mm TB- $260

That would just be me if I were in your shoes.

 

[Tom Hood]

Thanks for your response guy's yea one of my buddies told me that if I did the PI swap I would have to get my pistons grind down a little bit because of longer valves. It's a good thing he is not a mechanic. I'm going to do 373 gears, cams. and the 78mm Bbk TB and the typhoon intake and have it dyno tuned and that will be it for awhile.

 

[vertigasen]

Save money on the Typhoon intake an get a stock Ford plastic PI intake. The Typhoon might "look" cool because it is metal, but that is not necessarily a good thing. It heats up fast. All Professional Products are rough cast which means the inside of that intake is going to be rough, not smooth, and not flow as well as a stock PI intake. I had a PP plenum when I was still N/A, and the inside of the thing was nasty. I used 6-8 sanding balls and barrels trying to just get it smooth inside.

If you can find a wrecked Crown Victoria, Explorer, F-150, Mustang... they all had models that came with a 2v PI 4.6. Get the complete heads, manifold, throttle body, cables, bolts....everything. It is usually not that expensive, except for the time.

That will save you money, and all you to do more, with less!

 

[Tom Hood]

Thanks Vertigasen for the info the extra money i saved will help buy some more go fast parts.

 

[squeak93]

We run a pi swapped 98 gt with Hi-tech stage one cams (mhs degreed), Stock pi heads, pi intake, accufab plenum/tb and BBK long tubes. with 4.10 gears and slicks on a small 125 zex wet shot it yanks the front wheels and runs 11.90s. Oh it is a full coil over suspension/tubular k member car too.

But the car went from 16.50's with worn out npi stuff to a solid 13.5 car with just the pi swap, long tubes and 4.10s. (on a 150k+ shortblock). We've put well over 200 bottles through this car, had a nitrous back fire and its still as fast as it was the first day we hit it.

 

[Tom Hood]

Thanks squeak93, For you replay, I'm think I'm going with a full pi swap and intake with bbk 78mm plenum, msd coils, bbk equal length headers, frp 373 gears, steeda tri-ax shifter, sct tune on 93 octane. after I have the car on the dyno.