good replacement 4.0L heads

buddy of mine might need a new head for his 01 4.0L

are there any good places where you can buy complete heads (valves,springs, rockers included).

or what would you guys recommend for replacement heads???

if you got the dough....you can overspend on Hesco Aluminum heads

Differences betweel AMC242 heads over the years are minor - negligible, if you discount the 1987-1990 having the lower intake ports.

If you search around here, you should be able to find someone who has made brackets for the coil rail when he replaced his #0331 head with a #0630, which opens up the option of using either a #0630 or a #7120 cylinder head (with the #7120 being preferred, from the POV of performance and longevity.)

Hesco and Patriot Performance (and probably now Summit, Jeg's, and other major speed retailers) sell a replacement aluminum head - but it goes for about $1600 all up. Three of my XJ's cost less than that!

The idea of an "aftermarket" replacement head hasn't caught on until within the last year or so, and it seems to be the fruit of a discussion that a number of us had on the "strokers" board in early 2002. I'd like to know who's actually making the head - about a dozen of us have our fingerprints on it, and I think I was the first to float it past a manufacturer (Indy Cylinder Heads.) I don't want roylaties or anything - I just want to know what, if any, place I might have in Jeep history (along with a number of others, to be perfectly honest...)

5-90

sorry my bad.......i didn't mean aftermarket head as in "performance head". i was just looking for "replacement heads". he was quoted $700 for a empty stock replacement from the dealer, and they wanted to swap over his valves, springs, rockers and stuff. well he wasn't real happy about putting parts with a 100,000 miles into the new head. so he was wondering if somebody made a stock replacement head with everything in it.


or maybe if we could get a blank head for a little cheaper, and then buy new valves, springs and the rest and put it all together new.

suggestions???

Go to a JY and look for a head with a casting #0630 or a #7120. Depending on the milage, you may or may not need to rebuild the head. I got my head for $100 and had it rebuilt anyway for another $250 which included all the gaskets and new head bolts.
You definately want new head bolts. Get a FSM and torque as directed as several head bolts use a different torque.

Here is the link for the ignition rail mounts 5-90 was referring to, see post 19;
http://www.naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?t=98206&page=2&highlight=rail

Replacement heads are going to be stock items - there's exactly one aftermarket head available for the AMC242, and that is the aluminum head we're referring to...

5-90

scorpio_vette said:

sorry my bad.......i didn't mean aftermarket head as in "performance head". i was just looking for "replacement heads". he was quoted $700 for a empty stock replacement from the dealer, and they wanted to swap over his valves, springs, rockers and stuff. well he wasn't real happy about putting parts with a 100,000 miles into the new head. so he was wondering if somebody made a stock replacement head with everything in it.


or maybe if we could get a blank head for a little cheaper, and then buy new valves, springs and the rest and put it all together new.

suggestions???

Click to expand...

We can get them fairly reasonabley priced at CSK, I think it should be a Checker in your area. They are reman stock units. Just print out this url and ask them to price match it.
http://www.partsamerica.com/ProductList.aspx?parttype=246&ptset=A&searchfor=Cylinder+Head

my buddy is kinda weird and doesn't wanna get a reman head cuz he thinks that he's just buying another bad head due to the known problems with the 0331 casting.

and in a way i don't blame him. i don't know if it's true or not, but i've heard of a couple incidents where the 0331 heads had such a slight leak that it didn't even show up on magnaflux. like i said, i don't know if that's true or not since i haven't seen it with my own eyes. but there is that thought about what happens if the reman didn't catch all the defect.

So, don't get a #0331. Get a #0630 (1995-1998) or a #7120 (1991-1995) and fab up brackets for the coil rail, like has been done here. Mechanical mounting need not be really rigid, and the brackets, being metal, should provide a solid ground.

Since the aluminum head is the only aftermarket repalcement yet, there just aren't a lot of options out there...

5-90

i did some searchin on here about the whole 96-98 head swap in exchange of the 0331, but couldn't find any writeups or pics of anybody having adapted the coils onto the "older style" heads. i haven't personally seen how the coil packs are mounted on the newer 4.0L, so i haven't been able to think about it yet.

Keep searching. There was a thread within the last two weeks.