2.0 Head Upgrade Questions

[BoPro5]

i looked all over and can't find anyone that has done a head upgrade on their 2.0l n/a. If there is a thread already please direct me there but otherwise who has done one? what did you do? what are your results? whats the dish?

I'm looking to do this to my P5 when the warranty expires so I'm getting my research done now.

P.S. were talking n/a all the way here. Darkside bad!

[BoPro5]

so no one has ever upgraded the head on their protege?

[slavrenz]

Why do you want to upgrade your head? What are you hoping to accomplish?

[niky]

What kind of upgrade? A port and polish?

I've done a port n' polish, combustion chamber matching and intake manifold port-matching... didn't really see any gains from that until I changed out the sucky stock cams for some bigger units... headwork won't get you much until you solve the problem of the weak stock cams and the flow restrictions in the intake manifold.

[P-Funk!]

^yep.

[BoPro5]

I'm aiming at 190hp knowing i will fall short but thats why i'm aiming high. this is what i'm thinking... port & polish, new cams(twiggys), shave the head as much as possible to raise compression, add a header and if it's worth it to port the intake manifold or get a different one then i'll do that. And add a management system (microtech).

What i don't want to do is mess with the bottom end. From the head gasket up is all i want to touch you know. I need to get an old head from someone and i'm going to ship it to Corksport and have them do everything so all i have to do is rip my head off slap that puppy on there and tune it.

If anyone has good advice or can spot problems i will run into, or has a head they don't need post it!

[BoPro5]

I want to keep the low end torque even if it means not having the highest horsepower rating. So wouldn't porting out the intake give high end horsepower but sacrifice the low end torque?

[Bigway]

i have a few of them i am willing to sell? also good luck on finding some twiggy's i don't believe that they are made anymore.

[BoPro5]

also good luck on finding some twiggy's i don't believe that they are made anymore.

Shit! well if anyone is selling a set of those... ha ha. whats another badass set of cams?

Pm'd

[Bigway]

I really don't know I have been looking but it seams that some people have been sending them off to have regrind I think. pm'd

[BoPro5]

so i did some looking around and found that integral cams are the best right now but so expensive!

[Bigway]

you can send them off and do a regrind for about 400 for the pair.

[BoPro5]

you can send them off and do a regrind for about 400 for the pair.

That sounds good. after getting ground would they still be a drop in cam or would they need shim? I had another thought to... maybe going with the JDM cams would be a good idea. they may not offer the peak horsepower of a more radical cam but would be better for daily driver driveability. besides with adj. cam gears i can make it what i want.

Is the stock 2.0 head (fs-de?) the best head to start off with or is there a better head out there that i should start with and send that one to the machine shop?

[niky]

Integral Stage 2 and higher will need cam gears for powerband optimization and engine management for best results. Stage 2 will already lose you a bit of low-end unless you retune it with cam-gears... seems built to make maximum power at 7000 rpms and above. Stage 2.5 will be even more radical. Without doing any work to the bottom end, you're not likely to want to rev that high.

I'd rather not shave the head... do your basic IHE, the PnP, do the 626 intake manifold (hone it, first), do the 2.5 cams, the gears, a Microtech, and the new DocB oil-pump modification... raise your rev-limit to around 7500 rpm and you should have about 150-160 whp or so on the Dynojet. Won't have as much torque as a built engine with stock cams, but it'll have so much more reach in any gear that you probably won't mind. Add high comp 11:1 pistons and you could probably hit 160-170 whp. After that... it'll probably get very bloody. :D

EDIT: Nope. No better heads out there. The high-revving "170 hp" FS-ZE has, from what we can tell... the exact same head as the FS-DE. Only the cams and compression are different.

[br289165]

1st swap for a for a PG intake manifold, the best single gain you'll get and nothing else means shit without it.


I'm aiming at 190hp knowing i will fall short but thats why i'm aiming high. this is what i'm thinking... port & polish, new cams(twiggys), shave the head as much as possible to raise compression, add a header and if it's worth it to port the intake manifold or get a different one then i'll do that. And add a management system (microtech).

What i don't want to do is mess with the bottom end. From the head gasket up is all i want to touch you know. I need to get an old head from someone and i'm going to ship it to Corksport and have them do everything so all i have to do is rip my head off slap that puppy on there and tune it.

If anyone has good advice or can spot problems i will run into, or has a head they don't need post it!

[BoPro5]

IHE???

Whats the difference between shaving the head to lower compression and putting the 11:1 pistons in?


That break down was perfect tho thats exactly what ill do. But still not sure about the integrals. I suppose i just gotta get drunk one night and order them(cheers).

i had a wrecked 626 about six months ago. damn, i should have snatched the intake!!!

About how much does a hone on the 626 intake at the local machine shop run?

[BoPro5]

1st swap for a for a PG intake manifold, the best single gain you'll get and nothing else means shit without it.

Is the protege garage intake mani. better than a honed 626 mani. or is it the same thing? does anyone have a dyno sheet for a n/a protege with the PG intake mani. on it?

[BoPro5]

alright so wtf! someone told me if you put a microtech LT10 on the car then you can't pass smog. I'm in Nevada so i don't know what laws everyone else goes by but when we get smogs they plug into the computer. F...ing laws!!!

[Bigway]

Try to make it were you can plug the orginal ecu in. When it is time to have you car check you can take out MT and plug in the ecu. That how some people do it in st.louis. They just limp it to the station get inspected and chancge it back once they got done.

[br289165]

same as the 2000 626 manifold. don't worry bout the port/polish on the mani. it aint worth the money.



Is the protege garage intake mani. better than a honed 626 mani. or is it the same thing? does anyone have a dyno sheet for a n/a protege with the PG intake mani. on it?

[niky]

IHE???

Intake-headers-exhaust. Sorry for the obscure abbr.


Whats the difference between shaving the head to lower compression and putting the 11:1 pistons in?

Actually... it's just personal preference. My head's shaved a bit, as well... but there's only so much you can do with shaving. High comp pistons and some good rods are the way to go... but for some of us, that's out-of-budget.

[StealthWyvern]

alright so wtf! someone told me if you put a microtech LT10 on the car then you can't pass smog. I'm in Nevada so i don't know what laws everyone else goes by but when we get smogs they plug into the computer. F...ing laws!!!

You wont pass inspection due to it no longer being OBD-2 compliant. Now for a sniffer test that all depends on your tune.

[BoPro5]

well this is all just gonna have to wait. got laid off yesterday. this economy is just stupid.

[ucMP3]

well this is all just gonna have to wait. got laid off yesterday. this economy is just stupid.

Damn, that sucks bro. I'm lookin for a job right now too.

[Kymerik]

ouch and you're in Las Vegas too, sorry to hear that man

[zoompastu]

Best thing to wake up the FS motor is a 7.5 pound Flywheel

[CulRidr]

Honestly, just look in the N/A tuning forum and look at some of the builds there (including mine) to give you an idea of what to do, how to do it, and what your gains might look like. But for what you want to do and are talking about, 140whp is about as high as you'll reach...especially since you can only shave the head by so much, not even coming close to what high compression pistons can do.