Alright, first of all. I havent done any real engine work to my car by myself yet. Ive always wanted to tear one apart and put it back together, obviously with new parts. Right now I have a comp cam 224/230 and I am getting heads ported and polished. I plan to send the heads away a month before school lets out so I have them for summer. I was wandering what exactly is inolved in a head and cam install. My friend knows a lot about cars, but mostly stangs. This would be done during the summer, so I have the time, would it be worth it to try it with my fried or pay the 1100 or so to get it installed? What are some good install guides? and a list of exactly what Ill need?

Thanks
Mitch

 

I was had the same dilema, but I chose to do the head swap on my own (with a few friends here and there) and I've never gone that deep into an engine before. Biggest things I did was throttle body bypass and thermostat.
I think the biggest problem that you'll run into is some of the head bolt access through the longtubes. It can be done with them in there just unbolt then from the y-pipe and move the headers out of the way. Just make sure to label every thing you take off. ie..vacuum lines, head bolts,

oh yeah, the coolant crossover tube in the back of the heads can also be a pita.

 

Yeah, I am mostly worried about the small wires, tubes, lines ect. I have an amptitude for this kind of stuff. My grandfather is a carpenter and my other grandfather built trains and cars for 40 year, I would ask him to help, but he is not doing to well. I think I could handle it, just the down time issue.

 

The one thing that helped me the most with the cam swap (took heads off too) was keeping track of everything. I used zip-loc bags with index cards tossed in identifying what's in there. Sounds a little overboard, but it saved my ***! If you have the means, take pic's of everything as you go along. It'll help with putting it back together and can be funny stuff to look at later

 

O dont worry, I will be taking pics. How is the 224/230?

 

Good fun!
It's coming out this summer in favor of an LE2 heads & cam combo. But with stock heads, this cam was a blast, no regrets.

 

For me, the most time consuming thing to do when I was doing heads and cam was porting the heads. I must have spent over 60 hours porting just the heads. Then another few hours porting the intake.

Best advice I can give you is to keep things clean and in order. I label everything, I use cardboard to hold all bolts, so that each bolt goes back exactly where it came from.
Inspect all parts, just because you are replacing the old with new parts doesn't mean you shouldn't closely inspect your old parts for tell tale sign of damage or excessive wear.

Good Luck.

 

If you guys used install guides, where did you get them?

Thanks

 

This guide didn't exist when I did my cam swap, but I sure as hell would've used it if it did. I'll definitely have the laptop in the garage with this on it during my heads & cam swap.
Check on the right side, there'll be a removal and install guide.

 

Another guide:
http://www.afrashteh.com/guide/install.htm