Head Casting numbers

[Curtis]

My company recently landed the contract to supply all the bearings on a new Ford engine program so I spent Wednesday and Thursday in meetings with Ford people. The Ford program engineer is a mustang guy so we did some BSing while on breaks. He has a set of GT40P heads that only have 30 hours on them that he said he would sell me for $140. I just want to make sure of the casting numbers and markings for GT40 and gt40 P heads. I did a search but only found a casting number for the P's F77E. I thought there was more information cast on the 40 series heads.

Can someone please confirm the identification marks on the GT40 and GT40P heads?

Thanks

[82mustang]

on the front of the heads the GT40's have 3 bars and the GT40P's have 4 bars(i'm 99% sure), and on top of the heads where the rockers sit there should be a "P" or "GT40P", "GTP", "40P" or something of that nature cast in..if he works for ford and is a mustang guy i think it's safe to say he doesn't have a reason to lie..for that price i would buy them as quick as possible! BTW are you allowed to disclose any info regarding this new ford program and how your company is involved? i'm curious to see what's cooking over there besides ford being themselves

[FoxChassis]

Yes, there are three bars (GT-40) or four bars (GT-40P) cast on the front end and back end of each head.

"GT" (GT-40) or "GTP" (GT-40P) will be cast right near the #1/#8 spark plug boss.

GT-40 heads can have several different casting numbers as they were used in MANY applications, not just Mustang/Lightning/early Explorer/Mountaineer. The most common casting numbers are F1ZE, F3ZE, and F4ZE.

If a head has a casting number of F77E it's a GT-40P.

F = 1990s
7 (#1) = 7th year (1997 in this case)
7 (#2) = Explorer

December of '96 ('97 model year) is when the Explorer/Mountaineer first got F77E (GT-40P) heads.

[Curtis]

Thanks guys. I'm not saying that this guys is lying at all. He seems like a really great guy. I just wanted to make sure that I was getting either GT40 or the P heads because I didn't want any mix ups and if they are P's I was thinking about ordering the Ford Racing headers before I recieved the heads. Some of the posts on here say that the early 5.0 explorer heads were GT40, not P's. All I am sure of at this time that is the block was from an explorer engine with 30 hours run time. He bought the long block (I'm assuming from Ford, and he is using the short block with Al heads.

At this point in the program launch I'm not sure what I can tell you, but I will find out. I will tell you the engine is not slated nor is it a suitable mustang engine but it will most likely interest the truck guys. I'll let you know when I talk to him about the heads and I'll tell you all I am permited to.

Thanks for th info.