I bought a ported head online. I am wondering how hard it is to swap heads? Do I need to replace the head gasket too?

 

what block do you have for one...
assuming you have dohc block and you are replacing it with a dohc head, its not that hard at all. And yes replacing the head gasket would ideal... especially if you are looking for power you can play with compression with the head gasket.

 

head swap is easy, i took my SOHC head off and got it shaved and polished and put it back on. Like thekage said, its good 2 change the head gasket when you do this. espeacially if its never been taken out b4. most of the time it'll crack or break when you take the head off. if you got the $ get a metal gasket...

Good Luck

 

Just any metal head gasket would be good? What compression ratio should I look for? I plan to turbocharge it in a month or so, should I just go ahead and get a cometic head gasket or something would it be ok if I do? And last how about torqueing?

 

get the cometic gasket its good, even with Turbo setup.

yeh u need 2 torque it back 2 spec. check the FSM (they have em online if u dont got one, or PM BigVinnie he always knows this kinda stuff)

 

so does a s13 DOHC head bolt right up to a s14 block? I have been wondering this, but too lazy to search, lol.

 

arent the motors the same? i think it will just bolt up...

 

they bolt right up... everything is the same on all of the ka24de motors in rwd setups...the parts will all swap right out with no problems...

 

Actually, 95-96 cylinder head are different then 91-94 and 97-98. The have different part number and there is small changes. Nothing you will notice when you have a look but different for sure.

 

All the heads bolt right up, but your compression will change.
All KA DOHCS shared the same pistons and assemebly.
Valvetrain also remained the same.
The dome size in the heads decreased in the 95-98's increasing the compression to 9.5:1.
The heads in the 97-98 decreased in volume slightly, only because the piston rings were dropped I think only .005 from the original deck hiegth, so that they could also be used in the production assembly of the Nissan Altima.
Supposedly "got my info from DATSUN.ORG" the 91-92 also carried a compression of 9.5:1, while the 93-94 carried a compression of 8.6:1, this was only due to the fact that Nissan changed the production of the frontiers to DOHC in 93, I guess it was just a more streetable version for the trucks and cars to push out the assembly line.
SOHC heads on the other hand remained the same.
Pre production 1989 pistons had a raised dish in piston volume .020mm increasing the compression to 9.0:1, while mid 89-92 pistons had a lower dish volume under .020mm of 8.6:1.
If you didn't notice frontier trucks were made with the sohc until 1992.