aluminum heads

No factory mustang came with Aluminum heads, but Cobras had better heads "GT40's".
Also Explorers had a variation called the GT40P, these can be found in 1996 to 1998 5.0 Explorers, these heads require special headers which are sold by MAC and Ford Racing Performance Products (FRPP).

Another option is to look in our classifieds section, one of our users might be selling a set of aluminum heads.

One last thing, heads have 2 "flavors", Pedestal and Stud, this is how the roller rockers mount into the heads. Stock heads are "pedestal" mount. So if he is gonna reuse his rockers he needs to buy a pedestal type head. Else he will need to buy STUD mount (adjustable) roller rockers.

The GT 40 heads Raptor is talking about will interfere with your pistons. 79 pistons have no valve reliefs- but pistons with valve reliefs are cheap if u don't need forged ones.

Raptor-

Will those 96-98 explorer heads fit on a 95 5.0? Are they worth the investment if someone can find them for a good price? I wonder how much better the breathe then the factory 5.0 heads. Whats the main difference between the gt40 and the gt40p heads? I wonder if they can be reworked on a flow bench.

Just curious looking for my next upgrade that i can start working on and you seem to know what your talking about, thanks.

I8URLS1 said:

The GT 40 heads Raptor is talking about will interfere with your pistons. 79 pistons have no valve reliefs- but pistons with valve reliefs are cheap if u don't need forged ones.

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'79 pistons have valve reliefs, so there will not be any clearence issues. The only year you need to look out for is the '86 H.O, or '86-'91 pass-car non-ho engines. THEY are the ones that do not have valve reliefs in the pistons.

The biggest problem with the '79-'84 pistons, is that they are sand cast aluminum. If he's bolting a blower on, the tune will be CRITICAL, as these pistons will not take detonation like forged pistons will.