I recently pulled a pair of "G" heads off a 1957 Ford in a local scrap yard and after removing the valves I found they were pitted so badly I could not use them for the 1.92 valves.  are these scrap or are they good for anything like boat anchors

tom in iowa

54 Merc wagon

54 sunvalley

Tom:

Maybe they will clean up at 2".  A lot of Yers put 2" intake and 1.60 exhausts in G heads.  Also, replacement seats can be installed, but maybe not worth the cost.

John - "The Hoosier Hurricane"

Tom: if you are building a set of heads, it's best to put hardened seats in the exhaust side anyway, due to unleaded fuels. How much more to put seats in the intakes? I'm assuming the valves are re usuable...

Paul

after removing the intake valves I found that the seat area was all pitted and ate away from sitting in a junk yard for so many years.  How big to I need my motor to be for 2 inch valves

tom in iowa

54 Merc wagon

54 sunvalley

I dont think you necessarily HAVE to go to 2 in. valves.  Take the heads to a good machine shop.  There are different variations of seats available and possibly one that will fit the OEM valve or 1.94 while cleaning up the pitted area.  I had new intake seats installed with 1.78 in. valves in a G and 113 head.  The "why" is long and not important, and this is mentioned because the 113 had extra large outside diameter seats installed in the process. 

You should take a good look at the combustion chambers and head surface too for heavy rust pitting. 

Mike, located in the Siskiyou mountains, Southern, OR 292 powered 1946 Ford 1/2 ton, '62 Mercury Meteor, '55 Country Squire (parting out), '64 Falcon, '54 Ford 600 tractor.

John didn't say you HAD to go to 2" intakes. He said the heads were capeable of using 2" intakes if you need to go that far to clean up the seats.

Frank/Rebop

Bristol, In ( by Elkhart) 

I happen to have a copy of Popular Hot Rodding from Aug 1970(1st car mag I ever bought).They were doing a "project Y-block".They had a set of  modified ECZ-C heads.The valves they were going to use were from a 58 Chev 348 intakes(1.9375 dia) and 61 Chev 348 exhaust valves(1.656 dia). Interesting article about how they reshaped the combustion chamber and did a little work on the runners and ports.

  

I would recommend taking the heads to a machine shop that has experience in working with old engines and some guys working there that have been doing what they do for a long time. Let them give you some advice.

Kenneth

Fredricksburg, Texas

We install intake seats in Y heads quite often. Hey, they're 50 years old and most have been butched.  Ford intentionally sunk the vavle job and then 2 more guys likely did valve jobs during the heads life time.

Some shops will get nervous but we use 2.060" OD, 1.687" ID intake seats and 1.6875" OD exhaust seats. Exhaust seats should be 1.3125" ID.  Both are .250" deep.

If you're interested in performance don't let the shop use seats that have an inside diameter of more than 88 percent of the valve diameter.  

Probable cost $200.00-275.00. If the heads aren't cracked probably better than starting over. The next set might need the same work.

http://ford-y-block.com 

20 miles east of San Diego, 20 miles north of Mexico