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Early 5.7 hemi head swap 03-08

frosty23_45

Broke Dodge owner
Feb 12, 2008
1,238
6
Coal City, IL
Ok, so I have a 05 Magnum with the 5.7 hemi. Afraid of the valve seat drop issue biting me eventually. So been thinking about head swaps, or possibly getting the stock heads worked on. Porting and new seats and such.

My budget really limits what I can do, will have to wait till tax return time. So been looking into it a bit on the LXForums.

I've come up with a few options, but thinking in the short term would just be cheapest getting the stock ones worked on. No idea of anywhere local though.

Other options are:

Eagle head swap (09+) 5.7. This comes with needing a few thing though. Like exhaust manifolds, mid-pipes, custom pushrods, and to take advantage of the heads an intake manifold, and a tune obviously.

6.1 heads, haven't researched this much, but again should do an intake manifold, and would need a tune. Probably the exhaust manifolds and mid-pipes as well. I'm sure there's other stuff, but haven't looked into it much yet.

Aftermarket heads, near $2k price range just for the heads alone. But the other options will probably run near that anyway, or more.

So question is, anyone have experience with these on here? Any thoughts or something I haven't considered?
 

b4black

before black
Jun 6, 2008
1,331
542
Oswego
I did a little digging, since I see a Hemi in my future. Seems the early engines could drop a valve guide seal if overheated. General consensus was to not overheat the motor and everything will be fine. Stay up on maintenance, run a cooler thermostat, don't ignore leaking water pumps, etc.
 

Shawn1112

TCG Elite Member
TCG Premium
Aug 4, 2010
34,883
104,495
Streamwood
Seems the early engines could drop a valve guide seal if overheated. General consensus was to not overheat the motor and everything will be fine. Stay up on maintenance, run a cooler thermostat, don't ignore leaking water pumps, etc.
Exactly!!!!!
I have had 2 early Hemi's and have a shit ton of friends that have/had them.
Myself or my friends have never had a valve seat issue and I beat the shit out of my 1st Charger. I know people locally running FI on early stock 5.7 heads with no issues. I have seen it happen to others on some of the forums, and strongly believe it was due to them neglecting maintenance issues.
 

frosty23_45

Broke Dodge owner
Feb 12, 2008
1,238
6
Coal City, IL
Right, just trying to eliminate it before it happens. I'm already running a 180* tstat and a Diablo Intune to change the fan settings. Problem is the car had 119k on it when I bought it and the previous owner apparently didn't care for it as well as I am. So I'm not entirely sure it hasn't overheated in the past.

The 09+ heads can be found fairly cheap, but do require a bit of tuning and such, but can see some decent gains.

I'm leaning towards getting the stock ones redone and hopefully having the cash for a cam while I'm at it. Just trying to get a feel for what's been done and what would make sense. Eventually I'm hoping to supercharge it, but that probably won't happen.

Anyone know of local shop that would work on these?
 
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