Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums Modifications 3.0L Duratec Took heads to machine shop

I took the heads in to get cleaned. They had a lot of fine powdwery metallic dust type material from the spun bearings. These are the 2.5 heads.

Anyway, while I was there the guy recommends that I get them milled. But I said no since I seem to remember reading here that theres not enough clearance to take off much. I don't have pics of them but they didn't look bad to me. No pits or dents. I did see a faint outline of the piston in a couple places but regardless they were still pretty smooth.

The guy says that he would take off two thousandths and that I would be fine. And that if I got Felpro gaskets that are thicker than the OEM's that I would have no probs.

I searched around a bit to see if I could get some idea about how I might proceed and so far it looks to me like I shoould not get them milled but I'd like to get more opinions from the experts here. What would you do? Thanks.

I used the Fel-Pro gaskets (I doubt they are thicker than OEM, I'd even put money on it they aren't...) and had my heads milled .003" and have no issues at all.

Just take enough off to clean them up. .002"-.003" should do it. You want to make sure that your head gasket seals properly.

If you want to, you can very carefully remove some of the material from the combustion chamber with a dremel or similar too. If you look at the 3l heads and the 2.5 heads side by side, you'll notice that there is 2 "bumps" between the valves. I would recomend taking material from there. It will lower compression and recude the possibility of detonation.