Hey guys I need some advice,
I have to change my head gaskets on my '92 TPI 5.0/5 spd. There's a chance that my head can be cracked and if so I was wondering if it's possible if I can put on some heads from my SB 400. I believe that they are 262 castings with 2.02 valves. I'm guessing that I would lose torque but how bad of a swap would it be, if it would even bolt up.
The reason why i'm considering it is because I know the heads are good, I pulled the engine at about 40,000 miles.

Can someone confirm if the heads would bolt up without too much of a problem and what will it do to my perfomance?

thanks

 

I've never heard of heads with a casting number ending in 262 and couldn't find anything on them (or are they off of a 262ci SBC?). They would bolt up but it is a really bad idea if they are suited for a 400ci SBC. The valves are too big, a 2.02 can actually hit the top of the cylinder wall of a 3.735 in bore.

 

good point, I was trying to look up the bore on my 305 but got sidetracked. thx. i don't remember the exact casting # but thought they were 262's. It's a truck block

thx

 

i know that the two barrel 400 had 1.84 valves intake and 1.5 exhaust iirc. if it was a 4barrel it most likely had 1.94 intake. not sure what size the 305 valves are though. i only remember because i bought 2 sets of heads for my old 400 before i blew the crank on it. good luck

 

Most 305 heads that I know of are 1.84 intake and 1.5 exhaust. I think that some of the older one's are 1.7x intake though, I could be wrong on that I've never seen it my self.

1.84 intakes on 4.125 bore from the factory? Someone must have crossed an "I" and dotted a "T" somewhere along the line there.

 

My mistake, the heads are actually 462264 castings with 2.02 valves. Worse case scenario, if my stock 305 heads are cracked i'll just have to bite the bullet and buy some L98 heads that a friend has. I believe they are from a '91.

 

Lucky for you 305 heads don't crack very often they are thick and heavy casting on our cars. That's one of the reason people port them because there's a lot of metal to play with.

I would be very surprised if they are cracked unless you were endurance racing with no water pump or something.

 

sounds good to me. the problem that I did not consider is the possibility of the short block failing somewhere because of the rebuilt heads. I can't rebuild the short block now so i'm going to get the heads rebuilt. I hope the fresh heads don't overstress the bottom end and cause something to fail. time will tell