sunbeamtiger.co.uk

Does any member know if Edelbrock makes cylinder heads for the 260 engine? I know that they make them for the 289 engine and that some members have fitted cast iron 289 heads to the 260 . Does this mean that the 289 alloy Edelbrock heads could be fitted to the 260? I suspect that the diameter of the valves is the important factor and may be a problem if Edelbrock have fitted large valves.

At 1 time I fitted Hi PO 289 heads to my 260. Only had to make slight indents into piston tops (with an angle grinder ) to clear valves. So imagine aluminium heads would fit as well. But you need decent 4 barrel carb & headers to use their potential. Why not just buy a 302 Motorsport crate engine 340hp ready to run? I messed around for years with 260 base & never really got it all sorted. Change to 302 was best thing I did.

Edelbrock sell their SB Ford engines with 1.90" intake valves or 2.02". I think the 1.90" will be OK as a std. ironl 289 heads and inllet manifold fit. I had 289 heads and inlet on my 260 and it made a big differenc. The Edelbrock 1.90" heads certainly fit a 289 with std. pistons

I can only second bigbob's recommendation of swapping the 260 for a 302.

Have a word with Real Steel about one of their 302 engines:
www.realsteel.co.uk

The Edelbrock Performer RPM heads have 1.90 inch inlets and 1.60 exhausts.

http://www.summitracing.com/parts/edl-60229

The problem is that these heads, like many others, have 60cc combustion chambers which are too large compared to the 260 engine's 53.5cc. This will lower the already low 8.8:1 compression ratio to about 8.1:1.
There is no point in trying to mill the heads to raise the compression ratio sufficiently because the valves will probably hit the pistons, even using a standard cam. This definitely precludes using a performance cam.

Flycutting the crowns of the fragile OEM cast pistons deeply enough would probably weaken them to the point of early failure.

I suggest that you follow bigbob's advice:

I messed around for years with 260 base & never really got it all sorted. Change to 302 was best thing I did.