PI Swap next weekend

[Rife96GTconv]

I will be doing a PI head swap on my 96 GT next weekend with the help of a friend who is a mechanic. I have spent a good bit of time on the boards getting information regarding parts I'll need, and the install itself. I do have a couple of questions before I do this:

1). I have an SCT tuner that I bought from American Muscle. As usual, they were awesome to deal with and sent me some new tunes via email to use when I get the work done. Would it still be a good idea to get the car dyno tuned, or would this suffice?

2). For anyone who has done this, were there any parts of it that gave you problems that were out of the norm and how did you solve them?

Thanks for the help in advance.

96 Laser Red GT vert.
CAI
70 mm tb
VRS x-pipe
Magnaflow cat back
SCT tune
Fidanza aluminum flywheel w/ King Cobra clutch
3.73 gears
Steeda triax
H&R SS springs, tokico shocks, mm cc plates, steeda bumpsteer kit, full poly bushing kit in front end, X2 ball joints
17x9 & 17x10.5 chrome bullitts

 

[Dark04GT]

As far as tuning a dyno tune is usually superior to a mail order tune. They have the car there in person and they can just do a better job. That being said, BAMA does a good job and you are looking at ~$400 for a dyno tune. You've got to weigh your options. I would give the BAMA tune a try, if for some reason you are not happy with it than you can reassess.

For your PI swap as long as you have some good resources you should be fine. Here is one of the better resources I have seen on the swap:
http://www.stangnet.com/mustang-forums/717166-pi-headswap-write-up.html
Good luck!

 

[trombonedemon]

You should really consider getting the the threads Helicoiled before you put the PI heads on, that will give you some peace of mine with the the PI heads being prone to spark-plug blow-out.

 

[wmburns]

+1 on an excellent suggestion....

I don't believe that the OP stated the MY of the donor. If later MY heads (maybe 2003+), they have more threads and therefore do not have the spark plug blow out issue.

Should be an easy matter to count the # of threds.

 

[san~man]

Helicoil is not recommended as a repair/fix for the alu heads, a timesert is.


++ TIME-SERT Threaded inserts for stripped threads, threaded inserts, thread repair stripped sparkplug's, Ford sparkplug blowouts, threaded inserts threaded, repair stripped threads, stripped threads, inserts threaded inserts, Ford spark plug repair,

 

[Rife96GTconv]

+1 on an excellent suggestion....

I don't believe that the OP stated the MY of the donor. If later MY heads (maybe 2003+), they have more threads and therefore do not have the spark plug blow out issue.

Should be an easy matter to count the # of threds.

The heads are off an 02 mustang with low mileage. The car was hit in the rear and totaled. The heads have 60k on them. I am having a reputable machine shop look at them, so I will look into the other suggestions too. Thanks for the help.