I took a cracked old Jeep head to my machinist, who told me it was beyond repair. I asked if I should replace with a really good complete head, or a relatively cheap casting that would have to be machined and assembled. He surprised me when he said the casting was just as good, because the expensive (and complete) head would need to be disassembled and reworked by a machine shop anyway, and there'd actually be a little more cost 'cause it would have to be disassembled. He recommended a medium-priced casting he'd had a lot of success with..... and in the end I got a great, mechanically sound head for about $200.00 less than if I'd bought one of the more expensive supposedly ready to bolt-on heads. Having a good machinist in your corner looking out for you is priceless.
Great video Tom. My father owns an engine shop and has a Serdi 101 seat and guide machine. I've watched use the same techniques with a marker and dial indicator countless times to show customers why we needed to do a valve job on a brand new set of heads (Brodix, Edelbrock, Dart, Pro Action). lots of customers don't understand the value that close tolerance prep work makes in an engine. I'm sure you do to but we would lap the valves in too after cutting the seats and honing the guides.
My advice was the same as you're saying. I was told even if name brand heads are $3000+ they still need a total disassembly and about $1000 extra work. When asking about a new name brand engine block, the answer was the same. Based on this, I opted for a short GM performance roller cam short block assy and got a machine shop to supply aluminum heads and valves. I supplied beehive springs and retainers.
Great Video - I hope you and Tom make more of them. They are important for people to know, see, and learn from. It also shows people who don't know you Mark, the depth of your knowledge and skill in machining, tooling, and making engines work. It can only help your business.
Second time I watch one of your videos. You could worry a guy with that kind of truth and craftmanship!! So learning more of what I don't know at 66 yrs old! Guess I was lucky and had good guys doing my valves in sbc and mainly big block. All those years never had customer or self drop a valve or lose a seat. Good valves and good rod bolts...well best I could get made my job better. Great video of real craft of engine builds! Thanks for sharing the details 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻😇😇😇!
Good stuff Mark and Tom. I remember on my first visit to your old shop you handed me a dial indicator...probably same one...to go ck some of your seat work on an iron oval port. I saw just as much detail back then! Thanks...JIM
love it. love the Sunnen machine. Running that much runout is just asking for valve failure due to fatigue. I can get my runout down between .0005 and .001 using my Sunnen honall and my Sioux stones but the time involved is just insane. Carnut1
You are spot on Sir; I have seen this very same phenomenon on AFR's SBC 210 so called "Race Ready" heads. I know the heads you are working on are 3K plus, Very sad!
Call me old fashioned but if i was spending $2000+ shipping + tax on a cylinder head id expect it to arrive in useable condition..... or arrive costing me $500.
Well i take your point but that isn't how it is. Its wrong, but you have to pull them apart and then you find average quality springs and valves. Best to get cores and let the shop do the rest to your specs. That way you get a quality product that costs +$500 over off the shelf and has good valves and springs rather than off the shelf +$500 for rectification with average valves and springs. See what i'm saying?
That is a fair question. I'm a qualified mechanic rather than an automotive machinist and I find myself constantly being told by machinists what they're going to do rather than what I want under the guise that I'm just a lowly mechanic. Well how wrong can they be? Very wrong. I can't do what they do for sure, so I need to use them. This doesn't mean they get to tell me what is and is not going to happen. This is my little story: Because ALL aftermarket heads need disassembly before use regardless of cost I decided to buy bare castings for my 350 SBC into a Toyota FJ40 4x4 project. I told them I wanted them to supply the valves and that i was going to supply the springs and retainers. I decided to go with these really excellent GM beehive spring from an LS6 ?? (I can't remember exactly) and Comp Cams retainers to match these springs on SBC heads. It is a unique combination but apparently works really well - almost everyone who has gone this route says the results are exceptional for small OEM hydraulic roller cams. Well the shop goes to set them up - and we're talking a shop that builds engines for Sprint Cars ffs and they protesteth most severely. Their gripe is these springs are no good because they're only 90lbs closed and that isn't going to work. I explain to him they're beehives and they don't need big spring pressure to work. They then say there is no damper spring with them, I reply they're beehives and the reducing radius of the coils and the ovate shape of the wire takes the place of the damper. They complain that they're too light again, and I reply well they're on LS engines that turn 6500rpm with a hydraulic roller. He says they are the wrong springs for the head and that this isn't how he sets up bare heads. I try to explain to him the concept of fucking beehive springs is to reduce pumping losses of the engine through reduced spring pressure and valvetrain mass. He doesn't get it. Next, he ring up a mechanic friend of mine who's son did his maching apprenticeship with him and pleads with him to to talk reason to me. Of course my mechanic friend tells him to just do as I ask and fit the springs. It goes on some more - he calls me back and says you'll have to pay me in full because I don't want to do it. I say if I pay will you finish it? He says no, then I say well we're at an impass. I'm not paying you to do the job you want to do, I'm paying you to do it the way I want it done, do you understand? I say to him do you understand I'm into these beehives and retainers for a bit of $$$s and I really don't want to double up on springs and retainers? Reluctantly he agrees. I pay him the money and they're done. As an incentive to finish I said I have some other work I need done so I bought a Milodon single idler gear drive to install (I really bought it to piss him off because I knew he'd protest about that and he most certainly didn't disappoint). So there you go. I know more than him about beehive springs. Comp Cams, GM, Chrysler and about everybody else knows more than him about beehive springs. These machinists are why when you go and get your big block Mopar built and want something different done to the block than a small block chevy they start arguing with you. They are morons. You have every right to ask about your local shop. The bloke in my local shop is a fuckwit and there are just so very many of them around.
'Correctly'? TO TOLERANCE! Do you think this guy makes,,, no, he doesn't 'make', he adjusts tolerances down, he 'decides what is 'good', what is 'tolerable', but never gets precise. His services probably includes 15%+ more cost to the head, he doesn't adjust a thousand heads a month as the maker of the head does make 1000 per month. Using larger more expensive machinery that simply cannot deliver the milling 'good' as described here.The heads were fine for what you paid, the extra milling is fine for what you paid. But it is "EXTRA".
@@mikedar8484 Not for what they charge and how they advertise them. Try advertise as high end or racing. That's a lie. 9 thou run-out is not acceptable even for street use.
@@VeritasEtAequitas Unfortunately for your argument, you don't decide market place pricing... you just decide what you individually want... it is a stupid Internal combustion engine,,, well priced below the 100K$ for full on professional racing like in stock cars/Nascar.. or actual ... real... betting people use in STREET RACING... where a 100K$ might be on the line... to say.. you are just a cheap whiner. I suggest you look into more advanced engines.. fan jets/Turbojets and after burning jets and look to the tolerances there to understand what is needed in a rotating assembly at higher revolutions... till then,,, quit whining.
@@VeritasEtAequitas Again, you deliberately, ignore, what tighter engines cost. And for the last time, quit bitch-en unless willing to spend 50-100K$ on a engine.. as THAT... is what wins the big bucks in 'Street racing'... not street racing in your neighborhood perhaps..... which means those that spend 50-100K$ will eat your lunch. I' pitted all the way back in the 70's, tryst me, I know what success costs and it ain't no 20,000$ or less engine.
I can see why Quality head work can be costly. And I assumed AFR would have better quality control than this. Makes me want to have the heads I just bought from Skip white for a mild performance marine engine taken apart and checked. Very good video with even better information. Sometimes you don't even get what you pay for !!
Are the AFR valve guides topped so that the end the valve comes out is square? I’ve had to square up guides in the past because the tapered dead pilot would lean and give bad readings and a bad cut. Great video. Most don’t understand how hard it is to get a 2.300 seat to less than .002” runout.
Great video... worth watching. Just food for thought. By apply a small amount (film) of oil after using a marker for marking it, it can improve surface finish of seat. Even though you are running tool at a vary low rpm and taking small cuts on aluminium it will increase tool life and prevent any aluminum build-up on cutting tool. Just food for thought. Aluminum build up can effect surface finish even if tool is still sharp.
I rebuilt my engine in my daily driver Mitsubishi gallant they had pretty bad runout I did a little clean up porting and matched the intake manifold and exhauste manifold . runs better than it did brand new gets a little better mileage smoother quiter . but it does have a little more compression. but it feels really peppy. I will never call it fast just nice step on it and be able to fry the tires.
Thank you so much for this. I got Flotek 220s cnc SBC's for my 406.. and went to get steam holes drilled and Kim Barr said same thing. So hes assembling them now. Idk how much runout they have but I like the peice of mind. Thx for the heads up
Great job brother. It HURTS to watch this, because you want to believe in the big guys. PROFIT over work ethic, and this is scary to watch honestly. Again, great job.
thanks this is just the kind of thing that people need to see. Whether you buy your heads from Dart AFR or the darn manufacturer there's always Improvement you can make . Do an out-of-the-box leakage test just for the hell of it and design it for visual stimulation you know like water that has mr. Bubble in it and pressure-test a known oem crap valve job " folks don't run your heads out of the box or it's Bubblicious"
I am dreaming of having equipment like that. If I could have a wish it would be a workshop with all the equipment to rebuild engines. I would feel like a pig in shit.
Honestly in my experience yes, I agree performance will not be as good. But you’d be surprised how bad the seats can be on some heads and still make expected power. JS
If buying a after market product should have been within spec sound like either the manufacture is doing a very sloppy job if was done by a so called robotic system then their is a serious problem with the system then it need to be re-calibrated cheer like the video and very informative
I know these heads are extremely expensive but like iv always said horsepower cost money the three things that are key to making huge amounts of power are cam heads and intake keeping it together is a different story
@@BuzzLOLOL, doubtful the seat is off. you can see a good amount of play in his tool just as he is sliding it on the guide. Then to verify the seat is off and its not just a bent guide rod or a faulty tool he should have marked the head where 0 is and where the highest reading is then rotate the guide 90 degrees and see if it shows up in the same place. If the readings are 90 degrees off then it is the guide rod and not the heads. Watching his second video has raised a lot of questions and his lack of reply to comments also speaks volumes as well. The second video is better because there are a few that are retired machinists that used to build and machine heads and they are even calling this fear mongering hack out.
@@Milner62 You & the other trolls are so utterly clueless, it's shameful. If anyone here is "a hack", it's you. Now go watch the results of his meticulous work ( not to mention all of his satisfied customers ) on the dyno making 650 hp, as well as the incredibly consistent mid 10 second ET's in a car weighing 3,700 lbs with driver, at an altitude of 5,000 ft and TERRIBLE humidity, ALL ON 91 OCTANE PUMP PISS. You do that, and then show us what you've done..........until then, buzz off, ya little house fly.
@@howabouthetruth2157, clueless huh? so the guide rod not even fitting in the valve guide properly is being clueless? maybe you should be calling the guy in the video clueless for expecting any kind of accuracy with a guide rod that can move side to side. As far as hack I am not a hack, I do not sit there and pass off worn out shit tools as proper adequate tools for the job being presented. This is a precision job and you dont use tools that have excessive slop in them. Also the only troll is you, cause if you truly believed that I and the others were trolls you wouldnt have wasted any time to reply to my post which was made 10 months ago. Me I dont care if I reply to a troll or not, it doesnt bother me, it in fact makes me laugh at how sad and pathetic they are and you take it all hook line and sinker when it comes to pathetic. As far as the shit he has done I really dont give a fiddlers fuck what he has or hasnt done. When it comes to the internet everyone has a 10 second car and I really dont give a damn. There is more to life than quick acceleration and not everyone is into that so you want to use it as a bragging point when I really dont care. Also 650 hp out of what exactly cause I am putting the finishing touches on my 306 that is should be in the neighborhood of 400hp running pump gas. Its all I need and its all I want, dont need more and dont want more and people like you are the reason why the automotive hobby is so horrible, you think everything is a fucking competition, point out how his tools are pure trash and you instantly want to start talking about what kind of performance his engines have like I really care. This guy is low on my list like scotty is and I wouldnt let this guy build a lawnmower engine.
@@Milner62 GO WATCH HIS RESULTS ON VARIOUS BUILDS ON THE DYNO AND ON THE TRACK, JACK ASS. THIS MAN HAS MORE SATISFIED CLIENTS GOING BACK YEARS, THEN YOU'LL EVER KNOW. You fucking trolls are nothing but a bunch of house flies. A machinest/builder of this caliber & reputation takes the time to make such HELPFUL videos ( just as many others have, all proving the same thing about mass produced aftermarket heads ) .........yet house flies like you come buzzing around. Fuck off.
I see this is a little bit of an older video but... If the valve that came out of the hole had no guide issues and lapped in correctly how would the seat be noticed with run out.( I don't have those fancy tools available) If I had "sharpied" the seat and spun the original valve in that seat would you see the same offset ?
DennitOne Yes absolutely, but you would not want to try and correct it by lapping it, just do that to get a witness pattern, Also remember they use very specific valve jobs to get the flow numbers they advertise so make sure whomever fixes the seats uses a cutter that won't compromise flow because you can kill a good port with a bad valve job!
who is to say the play on the pilot is off, how do you verify that is accurate? i'm saying if the play in your pilot is off, anything ran off of it is also off? Thanks
he states several times that the measurement is only as good as the valve guide, and he did not have much if any faith that the guide was worth a shit...
they are but they are pumping them out by the hundreds and to actually check each seat and sharpen their cutters as often as it would take it would cut into their profits. its all about money and what they can get away with. theres not a lot of machinists out there on the internet and social media so this stuff kinda stays quiet. almost every single domestic after market head manufacturers seats are like this edelbrock, AFR, Dart, whatever. you would be amazed how bad even some factory replacement heads are also.
Hi. Great video. I do the same QC checksMyself. I m just wondering if your run outChecking disk contact spot could have beenRiding up on that sharp close combustionChamber outer face edge to give you a falseReading ? Its somthing to watch for as Its happened to me before.Its impossible to see for sure in thisVideo as your big meaty engine builderPaw is in the way. lolsJohn Manley.38 years and counting as a racing automotiveMachinist/ engine builder.
So help Me out .. Are the guides installed half assed or the seat's . I'm guessing the guides ? You think it's that they are done in a hurry and that's the reason they are fucked or is it the quality of the material used ? Should I just order bare heads to be safe and start from that point ?
It's not just the runout, the seats and valves are complete junk from the aftermarket factory. Put carb cleaner down the intake ports with the valves fully seated, watch them leak out the other side into the combustion chamber. DO NOT run heads without doing a vacuum test to see if the valves are actually sealing, hell doing a combustion chamber fluid measurement will show a leaking valve! At least the guy whining about why he's not getting good compression on the dyno will have an answer, don't be that idiot that buys and runs ready to run heads out of the box.
I have tested 5 sets of AFR heads over the past three years for runout and leaks. Nothing. They were spot on. A friend of mine had a 335 BBC head where the seat was a bit off. Tony told him to send it back. They installed new seats and they were spot on after - and he was charged absolutely nothing!
I would like to see the heads run on a dyno out of the box and then a set that's had a valve job run to see what we are really talking about. And besides with a brand new casting the head will move around after its heated so precision now means exactly what later ?
What happens when the manufacturer's own racing division (Ford Racing, MOPAR, etc..) produces a head? Also, how precise are stock replacement OEM heads? Lets say I have a Jeep 4.0 with a cracked 331 head, and I buy a new 331-TUPY head from the dealership. What level of precision can I expect?
Skyline Fever a true racing head doesn't have anything cut into it, they come to you as a raw casting. gotta cut guides, seats, ports, every bolt hole, and milling all of the mating surfaces.
I bought a set of off the shelf afr 210 heads for my 414ci Chev. It is a daily driver and I have just turned over 350 thousand miles!!!! So I guess that my set of heads was......a ..ok.
Is there a good cylinder head out there that won't have this? Or have the valves leak? I thought it was due to the companies using parts made in china, but is this also true with say... Edelbrock?
May be getting Afr heads for my 68 camaro. I'm hesitant on getting the complete heads as opposed to the bare heads. 1600 for 1900 for complete. Must be Chinese valves etc.
Don't be so fast to knock the Chinese (and I'm not one). Their bad stuff is crap, like bad stuff is everywhere, but their good stuff is really good because their hi tech factories are all pretty new and have the latest equipment. There is no difference to a Swedish Asea 3D milling machine being operated by a Chinese guy in China, as there is an American (or Mexican) doing the same work using it in the USA. Back in the 50s and 60s we used to say the same about "made in Japan". You wouldn't do that now. The same for Korea. I used to work at Lexus Australia. We had half the failure rate as did BMW. But people are wiseing up to the prejudice being pushed out these days. Question: What assault weapon is the go to for Special Forces around the world, including SAS, SEALs and Delta Force etc in the USA? The Colt M4, right? Well ALL M4's are made in Japan by Miroku, under license because their version is built with better tolerances and reliability. Its also where Winchester, SAKO, Weatherby and Ruger rifles are made. Their quality control is much higher. Manufacturing is a global business and multinationals companies will seek out the best raw materials and the best engineering regardless of there its located. here in Australia we screwed our manufacturing 20 years ago because the then government let the floodgates open to gear from other countries. its taken 20 years to get in in balance and our government is soon to announce a budget surplus this year. The difference is if we want China to buy all their iron ore and coal from us, we have to be prepared to buy stuff from them. All of our major trading partners are countries where we have a balanced trade. They need us and we need them. Its this policy that makes us good to deal with. There is no room for politics. Its just good business.
So i imagine its the same with all that shiny crap. Like you buy an after maket crankshaft and your pistons are all firing a couple degrees off and the journalals arent centered correctly to the bore so your pistons drag one side of thecylinder, eyc etc.???? Nobody can do their damn jobs anymore.
You are correct. Everyone wants to criticize the China parts and say they need a lot of extra work to make them right, but the US parts are the same way. None of it is "right" out of the box.
And what exact application are theses afrs for? I just ordered a custom set of 1399s from AFR and seeing a video like this raises questions especially considering the heads are pushing $2,000 after tax. ~Edit~ Never mind I wont get a reply and after watching your other video I realize now you are nothing but a fearmongering hack that have faulty tools that you proclaim to be a problem with the heads. If these heads from AFR has the common problem you proclaim then there would have been a huge class action lawsuit against them.
Chuck Alexander use your stock and build em. I cut my own 305 heads at my buddy’s shop. It’s great to become friends with a machine shop owner. But you screw up, the heads are done for...
Did u say who makes that head ?? Isn't that the purpose of the video to help out enthusiasts as myself?? Or was u boosting your profession? Either way idc and understand , but if u are trying to help us out start by putting names out there man so we can know WHO NOT TO BUY FROM ..LOL TY for your time. .how much would u charge to assemble a set of after markets bare.
Nice work! I'm interested in purchasing some heads for an LS1 that have been worked by you. I really appreciate your attention to detail. I would like information on purchasing some heads from your shop. Thank you for this video!
Kevin Hontz Five months later, has the first valve come in yet? Seriously that amount of run out would take a very long time. The guide would be worn out by time it was done.
Lapping is different. It mates the valve to the seat. But if the seats are not concentric to the guide, it will leak no matter how much you lap them. That's why the guy in the video cut the seats, because trying to lap off .0010 of material by hand would mean you would be 80 years old by the time you finished one valve. Figuratively speaking.
How bad are the trickflow 170cc heads? I am blown away. So this could be a serious oil burn off problem and more?? I have a boosted motor and going to build a new dart short block and need reliability
It is especially important to ensure the valves are sealing on a boosted engine. It's important on a N/A engine but more so if you plan on running a power adder.
In the building of any engine for a say street performance car is it preferable to have the customer let the builder source all the parts for the motor? Rather than the customer buying parts that won’t really work well together?
Sadly soon all combustion cars and trucks including classics will be banned from public streets in entire EU and Scandinavia :-( In Germany the Green Peoples Party gave order to shorten fuel supply from 2025 on by reducing all conventional fuel stations to only one state operated central gas station per city or county. Car washs will be forbidden too because they are climate killers, now they want to slow down all the gas station pumps from 20 litre per minute to 2 litre per minute...From 2027 on in the EU certain car spare parts will be banned too....as exhaust systems, turbo chargers and even some engine and gearbox oils...California and New York will do the same from 2027 on.... So no investments should be done in oil burning cars any longer....They even created a new kind of crime here, called emissions and smoke crime. (BABVVEN & TEBBVEN & BEFVO laws)!!
They batch check them at the assembly area. What that means, is they may check the tenth head out of maybe 100. ( Who knows if their checking tools have regular calibration or not.) So they slap the stickers on the other 99.....whether they are jacked up or not.
The seat is 9 1/2 thousands farther from the guide centerline on one side than the other... in other words, the valve will leak badly... under 1 thousandths is desirable...
chevy vega your right I agree nothing you buy is race ready you have to make it race ready after spending alot of money you get bent over again spending even more money
All those head manufacturers outsource the guide and seat work, could be anybody almost. We've gotten pairs of heads from edelbrock that were done on totally different machinery. The only heads that were correct out of the box were a set from Brodix. All aftermarket blocks and heads are just potentially good cores until they are properly machined, most are junk.
They would work just fine out of the box..will work better with a little love or valve job...but this particular head has a crack in it 5:16 between the spark plug hole and the exhaust valve seat making all this work a potential waste of time and money...
Bipolar Gamers : likely true. But an unsuspecting customer may not no that and assemble them only to have low vacuum and shit power. At minimum I assemble and fill combustion chamber with liquid and let it sit overnight. A literal “leak down” so to speak.
1:30 "It really doesn't want to zero...But...." (I will use my horribly inaccurate clapped out tools that have been banged around my shop, and haven't been calibrated since new, to show you that just touching them makes the needle move like a ceiling fan, and MY WORK IS SUPERIOR!) If you brought those tools or that attitude towards tools to a NASCAR level engine shop...you'd be escorted to the door.
The valve guide hole/guide should have been in the proper spot no matter the casting error... the error could be hole placement or valve seat placement or both... or bad machining tools...
You know I don’t ever remember getting a set of complete heads and could bolt them right onto the engine first of all I just would NOT do that even if I bought them from GM. in the 46 years I've being doing engine work racing building I've never ever had an after market head that you could just bolt on out of the box there is no such thing and people who do this will waste an engine..
What if they were put together by people who do race like weingartner racing or spier racing heads? They do their own valve jobs and assemble a bare casting from whatever manufacturer you want. Or at least I believe they assemble them. They do it for racing heads to accept those are bagged and sent to you for assembly.
BUT BUT BUT AFR IS THE BEST EVARRR, said everyone on mustang forums. I'll take my shitty production iron gt40p heads and have a great machine shop do some great work with them and come close to or better than most aftermarket aluminum heads for half the price...not having to wonder if I'm gonna drop a valve at 6000 rpm. That being said, I don't know this guy, and it could be that HIS tools and gaugues are the ones that are a little off. Find a guy you can trust to do your machine work.
For what you'd spend reworking production heads, you could buy a set of AFR's and have the machine shop go over them for the same money. Unless the shop owner is a buddy that cuts you a break on price.
And since we're talking special effects here which always seem to impress the stupid here's one for you pressurize the port with the crappy valve job at 5 PSI maybe even 3 would work with acetylene right out of the old torch bottle. Hey Bubba your valve job is leaking perhaps you can name your new leaking heads dragon slayers. A fellow can dream right?
Nine thou runout!! Christ on a bike, that is horrendous!! If anyone wants a visual indication of how much that is, just look at a feeler gauge!! And people wonder why engines drop valves!
turboslag clueless what does dropping a valve have to do with valve seat runout . nothing only way your are you to drop a valve is if the valvetrain rockers arms, push rods ,cam or is a mechanical issue or improper adjustment , any other engine dropping a valve for that matter .another wannabe car enthusiast
231mac stfu you clueless Zionist slave I bet your American to and only know rubbish V8 lump mate I’ve been in the automotive industry for more then 13 years now muppet also how would runout cause a valve to break or damage the engine for the incorrect runout also how can you check for run out in a valve if it’s already installed in the head through the bronze guide.last time I’ve checked I’m sure all of this is checked then the engine builder or person doing this at home would do like in blueprinting engine . So how can you have a runout issue you make no sense
Spaz Girl Do they even teach grammar in your shithole country? Wow. Since you clearly know nothing about engines, I'll have to imagine that you didn't know that valves often ROTATE. Having a lot of runout causes the valve to be bent radially, over and over, weakening the stem near the tulip. Make sense yet? I can type slower if it'll help your slow ass keep up. And how do you check for runout with a valve installed??? Now we KNOW you're a complete imbecile, lol.
This is pure bull he is trying to survive in a market were you can buy brand name out of the box heads ready to run (the china ones do have issues) I have owned a high performance machine shop for over 30 years. I have checked MANY seats for run out . I have replaced the gauge twice because they are worthless when they get sloppy. He cant zero the gauge because its worn out and sloppy Sunnen seat gauges are very expensive. Or he is using a to small pilot to run a little scam. Shops? like this are why people buy crate engines and just buy complete heads and bolt them on. They have destroyed the market . if you are a competent HONEST builder you will build up a clientele that is willing to pay you for your skill and experience (you will be working cheap per hour but if you enjoy it its worth it.) Then there are the ones like this that try to con there way through selling unneeded work quoting fake power numbers and when people call them on it there like bill clinton they slip there way out of it. Of coarse this is just my opinion
Tom Hutchins well Tom I categorically disagree with you. The quality of off the shelf heads - in any price range requires thorough checking. This is why it is better to buy bare heads. The price is only about +$500 over new off the shelf and you get a quality and known product. This goes for new machined engine blocks too. Everything needs checking. They are not ready to run despite what you say. I am a mechanic rather than a machinist, and i don't care people do and don't do with their own gear. Let me say, I'm fitting a brand new Chevy to my fj40 and i opted for a short motor. I supplied budget aluminum cores for the heads, GMP beehive springs, Comp retainers to suit the springs and the gave the lot to my machinist and he supplied all the rest + the machining including surfacing and squaring the heads and CCing the chambers to my specs. What does this say when a professional mechanic goes this route on his own motor? It says to me i don't want the grief i see other people having on my own shit. Now you can go the conspiracy theory route about this machinist trying to create work for himself through fear but you are dead wrong on this. I marvell that a man of your experience would say what you've said!
Did you watch the video? Cause when he starts the valve cut you can hear it isn’t cut right you can hear it scrape on 1/3 of the valve and totally miss the rest
if you do anything...buy the factory original motors heads parts ect from the dealership!!! Too expensive you say...look how much bread you poured into that oil burning pile of garbage you have now, and to tear it apart and do it wright...$$$$
I took a cracked old Jeep head to my machinist, who told me it was beyond repair. I asked if I should replace with a really good complete head, or a relatively cheap casting that would have to be machined and assembled. He surprised me when he said the casting was just as good, because the expensive (and complete) head would need to be disassembled and reworked by a machine shop anyway, and there'd actually be a little more cost 'cause it would have to be disassembled. He recommended a medium-priced casting he'd had a lot of success with..... and in the end I got a great, mechanically sound head for about $200.00 less than if I'd bought one of the more expensive supposedly ready to bolt-on heads. Having a good machinist in your corner looking out for you is priceless.
Great video Tom. My father owns an engine shop and has a Serdi 101 seat and guide machine. I've watched use the same techniques with a marker and dial indicator countless times to show customers why we needed to do a valve job on a brand new set of heads (Brodix, Edelbrock, Dart, Pro Action). lots of customers don't understand the value that close tolerance prep work makes in an engine. I'm sure you do to but we would lap the valves in too after cutting the seats and honing the guides.
My advice was the same as you're saying. I was told even if name brand heads are $3000+ they still need a total disassembly and about $1000 extra work.
When asking about a new name brand engine block, the answer was the same.
Based on this, I opted for a short GM performance roller cam short block assy and got a machine shop to supply aluminum heads and valves. I supplied beehive springs and retainers.
Great Video -
I hope you and Tom make more of them. They are important for people
to know, see, and learn from. It also shows people who don't know you
Mark, the depth of your knowledge and skill in machining, tooling, and
making engines work.
It can only help your business.
Second time I watch one of your videos. You could worry a guy with that kind of truth and craftmanship!! So learning more of what I don't know at 66 yrs old! Guess I was lucky and had good guys doing my valves in sbc and mainly big block. All those years never had customer or self drop a valve or lose a seat. Good valves and good rod bolts...well best I could get made my job better. Great video of real craft of engine builds! Thanks for sharing the details 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻😇😇😇!
Good stuff Mark and Tom. I remember on my first visit to your old shop you handed me a dial indicator...probably same one...to go ck some of your seat work on an iron oval port. I saw just as much detail back then! Thanks...JIM
love it. love the Sunnen machine. Running that much runout is just asking for valve failure due to fatigue. I can get
my runout down between .0005 and .001 using my Sunnen honall and my Sioux stones but the time involved is just insane.
Carnut1
'Insane time' done by someone else... is insanely expensive/
You are spot on Sir; I have seen this very same phenomenon on AFR's SBC 210 so called "Race Ready" heads.
I know the heads you are working on are 3K plus, Very sad!
So u are saying if going to buy aftermarket heads then buy a set of cheaper almn heads and have them assembled thru a machine shop?
I lap the valves in every time. You can do a perfect job cutting seats and grinding valves but lapping them makes the seal. That's my opinion.
it might help but its really not the right way to do it, you can polish a turd all you want but its still a turd in the end haha.
Lapping a valve may have the valve pushed to one side of the guide. Still not good. Modern coated valves are supposed to be lapped anyway
Call me old fashioned but if i was spending $2000+ shipping + tax on a cylinder head id expect it to arrive in useable condition..... or arrive costing me $500.
as said previous...maybe buying a bare head is the best way and have it done the rest of teh way locally.
An easy way to tell is the price difference between assembled and bare heads...bare and assemble at your local head shop is the way to go
Well i take your point but that isn't how it is. Its wrong, but you have to pull them apart and then you find average quality springs and valves.
Best to get cores and let the shop do the rest to your specs. That way you get a quality product that costs +$500 over off the shelf and has good valves and springs rather than off the shelf +$500 for rectification with average valves and springs.
See what i'm saying?
That is a fair question. I'm a qualified mechanic rather than an automotive machinist and I find myself constantly being told by machinists what they're going to do rather than what I want under the guise that I'm just a lowly mechanic.
Well how wrong can they be? Very wrong. I can't do what they do for sure, so I need to use them. This doesn't mean they get to tell me what is and is not going to happen.
This is my little story:
Because ALL aftermarket heads need disassembly before use regardless of cost I decided to buy bare castings for my 350 SBC into a Toyota FJ40 4x4 project. I told them I wanted them to supply the valves and that i was going to supply the springs and retainers. I decided to go with these really excellent GM beehive spring from an LS6 ?? (I can't remember exactly) and Comp Cams retainers to match these springs on SBC heads. It is a unique combination but apparently works really well - almost everyone who has gone this route says the results are exceptional for small OEM hydraulic roller cams. Well the shop goes to set them up - and we're talking a shop that builds engines for Sprint Cars ffs and they protesteth most severely.
Their gripe is these springs are no good because they're only 90lbs closed and that isn't going to work. I explain to him they're beehives and they don't need big spring pressure to work. They then say there is no damper spring with them, I reply they're beehives and the reducing radius of the coils and the ovate shape of the wire takes the place of the damper. They complain that they're too light again, and I reply well they're on LS engines that turn 6500rpm with a hydraulic roller. He says they are the wrong springs for the head and that this isn't how he sets up bare heads. I try to explain to him the concept of fucking beehive springs is to reduce pumping losses of the engine through reduced spring pressure and valvetrain mass. He doesn't get it.
Next, he ring up a mechanic friend of mine who's son did his maching apprenticeship with him and pleads with him to to talk reason to me. Of course my mechanic friend tells him to just do as I ask and fit the springs.
It goes on some more - he calls me back and says you'll have to pay me in full because I don't want to do it. I say if I pay will you finish it? He says no, then I say well we're at an impass. I'm not paying you to do the job you want to do, I'm paying you to do it the way I want it done, do you understand? I say to him do you understand I'm into these beehives and retainers for a bit of $$$s and I really don't want to double up on springs and retainers? Reluctantly he agrees. I pay him the money and they're done. As an incentive to finish I said I have some other work I need done so I bought a Milodon single idler gear drive to install (I really bought it to piss him off because I knew he'd protest about that and he most certainly didn't disappoint).
So there you go. I know more than him about beehive springs. Comp Cams, GM, Chrysler and about everybody else knows more than him about beehive springs. These machinists are why when you go and get your big block Mopar built and want something different done to the block than a small block chevy they start arguing with you.
They are morons. You have every right to ask about your local shop.
The bloke in my local shop is a fuckwit and there are just so very many of them around.
Rich.
At 4:35 it looks like a crack going from the spark plug hole into the exhaust valve seat...can see it again real good at 5:16
Good eye man
If the heads are not milled correctly the company providing them should not be in business.
'Correctly'? TO TOLERANCE! Do you think this guy makes,,, no, he doesn't 'make', he adjusts tolerances down, he 'decides what is 'good', what is 'tolerable', but never gets precise. His services probably includes 15%+ more cost to the head, he doesn't adjust a thousand heads a month as the maker of the head does make 1000 per month. Using larger more expensive machinery that simply cannot deliver the milling 'good' as described here.The heads were fine for what you paid, the extra milling is fine for what you paid. But it is "EXTRA".
@@mikedar8484 Not for what they charge and how they advertise them. Try advertise as high end or racing. That's a lie. 9 thou run-out is not acceptable even for street use.
@@VeritasEtAequitas Unfortunately for your argument, you don't decide market place pricing... you just decide what you individually want... it is a stupid Internal combustion engine,,, well priced below the 100K$ for full on professional racing like in stock cars/Nascar.. or actual ... real... betting people use in STREET RACING... where a 100K$ might be on the line... to say.. you are just a cheap whiner.
I suggest you look into more advanced engines.. fan jets/Turbojets and after burning jets and look to the tolerances there to understand what is needed in a rotating assembly at higher revolutions... till then,,, quit whining.
@@VeritasEtAequitas Again, you deliberately, ignore, what tighter engines cost. And for the last time, quit bitch-en unless willing to spend 50-100K$ on a engine.. as THAT... is what wins the big bucks in 'Street racing'... not street racing in your neighborhood perhaps..... which means those that spend 50-100K$ will eat your lunch. I' pitted all the way back in the 70's, tryst me, I know what success costs and it ain't no 20,000$ or less engine.
@@mikedar8484 sounds like you did a lot of fucking drugs in the 70s too. moron
I can see why Quality head work can be costly. And I assumed AFR would have better quality control than this. Makes me want to have the heads I just bought from Skip white for a mild performance marine engine taken apart and checked. Very good video with even better information. Sometimes you don't even get what you pay for !!
You should always check your parts, whether they are new or not.
Are the AFR valve guides topped so that the end the valve comes out is square? I’ve had to square up guides in the past because the tapered dead pilot would lean and give bad readings and a bad cut.
Great video. Most don’t understand how hard it is to get a 2.300 seat to less than .002” runout.
Learned the hard way with Dart heads. Now I will always have my head checked out.
Alot of people say his gauge is crap but the cutter doesn't lie .just saying.........
X 2... the stock head job was crap...
Great video... worth watching. Just food for thought. By apply a small amount (film) of oil after using a marker for marking it, it can improve surface finish of seat. Even though you are running tool at a vary low rpm and taking small cuts on aluminium it will increase tool life and prevent any aluminum build-up on cutting tool. Just food for thought. Aluminum build up can effect surface finish even if tool is still sharp.
L Stevens aluminium valve seats? Uhhhhh? Ok!
Yes, the seats are iron or stellite...
I rebuilt my engine in my daily driver Mitsubishi gallant they had pretty bad runout I did a little clean up porting and matched the intake manifold and exhauste manifold . runs better than it did brand new gets a little better mileage smoother quiter . but it does have a little more compression. but it feels really peppy. I will never call it fast just nice step on it and be able to fry the tires.
Thank you so much for this. I got Flotek 220s cnc SBC's for my 406.. and went to get steam holes drilled and Kim Barr said same thing. So hes assembling them now. Idk how much runout they have but I like the peice of mind. Thx for the heads up
Great job brother. It HURTS to watch this, because you want to believe in the big guys. PROFIT over work ethic, and this is scary to watch honestly. Again, great job.
That's a really cool seat cutter. Like to have that in my gerr-age
Good info with parts being so precise in fitment better to have them checked out send the bill to the place of purchase for cutting caust
thanks this is just the kind of thing that people need to see. Whether you buy your heads from Dart AFR or the darn manufacturer there's always Improvement you can make . Do an out-of-the-box leakage test just for the hell of it and design it for visual stimulation you know like water that has mr. Bubble in it and pressure-test a known oem crap valve job
" folks don't run your heads out of the box or it's Bubblicious"
I am dreaming of having equipment like that. If I could have a wish it would be a workshop with all the equipment to rebuild engines. I would feel like a pig in shit.
Honestly in my experience yes, I agree performance will not be as good. But you’d be surprised how bad the seats can be on some heads and still make expected power. JS
Why aren't the custom manufacturers able to do the same thing?
Is there equipment bad or out of spec?
I need to have my head examined. But that’s another story.
So if I buy a set of Edelbrock Performer RPM heads that are “ready to go” I should take them in for a valve job before installing?
yup any aftermarket head.
I find Edelbrocks to have horrible seating issues.
If buying a after market product should have been within spec sound like either the manufacture is doing a very sloppy job if was done by a so called robotic system then their is a serious problem with the system then it need to be re-calibrated cheer like the video and very informative
Believe it or not my brodix br7 sts 273s for my ls7 was good to go from factory. It was gone through at my local machine shop!
Excellent video!
Not that it really matters but those look like rectangular ports. AFR 300's are oval port. Maybe those are the 315's?
bartstop
No, those are what AFR'S oval ports look like, it's more of a Roval shape fwiw
I know these heads are extremely expensive but like iv always said horsepower cost money the three things that are key to making huge amounts of power are cam heads and intake keeping it together is a different story
1:22...."It doesn't want to zero".....He ain't kidding....I dont suppose for one second he's ever asked himself why....
The seat is so far off, it doesn't matter...
@@BuzzLOLOL, doubtful the seat is off. you can see a good amount of play in his tool just as he is sliding it on the guide. Then to verify the seat is off and its not just a bent guide rod or a faulty tool he should have marked the head where 0 is and where the highest reading is then rotate the guide 90 degrees and see if it shows up in the same place. If the readings are 90 degrees off then it is the guide rod and not the heads.
Watching his second video has raised a lot of questions and his lack of reply to comments also speaks volumes as well. The second video is better because there are a few that are retired machinists that used to build and machine heads and they are even calling this fear mongering hack out.
@@Milner62 You & the other trolls are so utterly clueless, it's shameful. If anyone here is "a hack", it's you. Now go watch the results of his meticulous work ( not to mention all of his satisfied customers ) on the dyno making 650 hp, as well as the incredibly consistent mid 10 second ET's in a car weighing 3,700 lbs with driver, at an altitude of 5,000 ft and TERRIBLE humidity, ALL ON 91 OCTANE PUMP PISS. You do that, and then show us what you've done..........until then, buzz off, ya little house fly.
@@howabouthetruth2157, clueless huh? so the guide rod not even fitting in the valve guide properly is being clueless? maybe you should be calling the guy in the video clueless for expecting any kind of accuracy with a guide rod that can move side to side.
As far as hack I am not a hack, I do not sit there and pass off worn out shit tools as proper adequate tools for the job being presented. This is a precision job and you dont use tools that have excessive slop in them.
Also the only troll is you, cause if you truly believed that I and the others were trolls you wouldnt have wasted any time to reply to my post which was made 10 months ago. Me I dont care if I reply to a troll or not, it doesnt bother me, it in fact makes me laugh at how sad and pathetic they are and you take it all hook line and sinker when it comes to pathetic.
As far as the shit he has done I really dont give a fiddlers fuck what he has or hasnt done. When it comes to the internet everyone has a 10 second car and I really dont give a damn. There is more to life than quick acceleration and not everyone is into that so you want to use it as a bragging point when I really dont care. Also 650 hp out of what exactly cause I am putting the finishing touches on my 306 that is should be in the neighborhood of 400hp running pump gas. Its all I need and its all I want, dont need more and dont want more and people like you are the reason why the automotive hobby is so horrible, you think everything is a fucking competition, point out how his tools are pure trash and you instantly want to start talking about what kind of performance his engines have like I really care. This guy is low on my list like scotty is and I wouldnt let this guy build a lawnmower engine.
@@Milner62 GO WATCH HIS RESULTS ON VARIOUS BUILDS ON THE DYNO AND ON THE TRACK, JACK ASS. THIS MAN HAS MORE SATISFIED CLIENTS GOING BACK YEARS, THEN YOU'LL EVER KNOW. You fucking trolls are nothing but a bunch of house flies. A machinest/builder of this caliber & reputation takes the time to make such HELPFUL videos ( just as many others have, all proving the same thing about mass produced aftermarket heads ) .........yet house flies like you come buzzing around. Fuck off.
Nice video appreciate the message
I see this is a little bit of an older video but... If the valve that came out of the hole had no guide issues and lapped in correctly how would the seat be noticed with run out.( I don't have those fancy tools available) If I had "sharpied" the seat and spun the original valve in that seat would you see the same offset ?
DennitOne Yes absolutely, but you would not want to try and correct it by lapping it, just do that to get a witness pattern, Also remember they use very specific valve jobs to get the flow numbers they advertise so make sure whomever fixes the seats uses a cutter that won't compromise flow because you can kill a good port with a bad valve job!
Annnd......when the bolt it on dummies are wondering why your stuff runs FASTER.....AND dosent grenade.....Here is WHY! Attention to detail! Nice job!
who is to say the play on the pilot is off, how do you verify that is accurate? i'm saying if the play in your pilot is off, anything ran off of it is also off? Thanks
Was thinking the same thing.
he states several times that the measurement is only as good as the valve guide, and he did not have much if any faith that the guide was worth a shit...
He turned the pilot
A good machinist will check the pilot first.
This is why I start with a cheaper bare casting and build them up proper.
That is something I thought i d never had to do on a set of 2 to 3 thousand dollar heads are they not cutting them by the guide
they are but they are pumping them out by the hundreds and to actually check each seat and sharpen their cutters as often as it would take it would cut into their profits. its all about money and what they can get away with. theres not a lot of machinists out there on the internet and social media so this stuff kinda stays quiet. almost every single domestic after market head manufacturers seats are like this edelbrock, AFR, Dart, whatever. you would be amazed how bad even some factory replacement heads are also.
I thought I was the only one who used sharpies like that!!
I use dry erase markers these days.
2 tusen delar är ju nära på perfekt!👍
Very interesting information, thanks for sharing!
I checked my afr 210 's and the runout was only .0008 . Not sure what you are on about!!!!???? B
This one is .0095" off... more than 10 times yours...
Hi. Great video. I do the same QC checksMyself. I m just wondering if your run outChecking disk contact spot could have beenRiding up on that sharp close combustionChamber outer face edge to give you a falseReading ? Its somthing to watch for as Its happened to me before.Its impossible to see for sure in thisVideo as your big meaty engine builderPaw is in the way. lolsJohn Manley.38 years and counting as a racing automotiveMachinist/ engine builder.
So help Me out .. Are the guides installed half assed or the seat's . I'm guessing the guides ? You think it's that they are done in a hurry and that's the reason they are fucked or is it the quality of the material used ? Should I just order bare heads to be safe and start from that point ?
It's not just the runout, the seats and valves are complete junk from the aftermarket factory. Put carb cleaner down the intake ports with the valves fully seated, watch them leak out the other side into the combustion chamber. DO NOT run heads without doing a vacuum test to see if the valves are actually sealing, hell doing a combustion chamber fluid measurement will show a leaking valve! At least the guy whining about why he's not getting good compression on the dyno will have an answer, don't be that idiot that buys and runs ready to run heads out of the box.
I've purchased three pairs of Edelbrock heads and given them the carb-clean in the chamber overnight test without a problem.
I bought a set as well and just installed them as-is. No plroblem what so ever.
There are thousands of "idiots" out there running out of the box heads with no problems including myself.
I have tested 5 sets of AFR heads over the past three years for runout and leaks. Nothing. They were spot on. A friend of mine had a 335 BBC head where the seat was a bit off. Tony told him to send it back. They installed new seats and they were spot on after - and he was charged absolutely nothing!
very nice work 👍
dyno run @2:10 going oon in the background
I would like to see the heads run on a dyno out of the box and then a set that's had a valve job run to see what we are really talking about. And besides with a brand new casting the head will move around after its heated so precision now means exactly what later ?
The seat won't moved around in relation to the valve guide...
What happens when the manufacturer's own racing division (Ford Racing, MOPAR, etc..) produces a head?
Also, how precise are stock replacement OEM heads? Lets say I have a Jeep 4.0 with a cracked 331 head, and I buy a new 331-TUPY head from the dealership. What level of precision can I expect?
No better because they're usually farmed out to mexico.
Wow. That is disappointing.
Skyline Fever a true racing head doesn't have anything cut into it, they come to you as a raw casting. gotta cut guides, seats, ports, every bolt hole, and milling all of the mating surfaces.
Way worse in a lot of cases
causeimbatmaaan or even worse Linamar in Canada
I bought a set of off the shelf afr 210 heads for my 414ci Chev. It is a daily driver and I have just turned over 350 thousand miles!!!! So I guess that my set of heads was......a ..ok.
Maybe...
Their defective cuz were supposed to fail at 100k
Who makes that three angle seat cutter ? Looks different than the Van Norman ones I had at my old shop.
Is there a good cylinder head out there that won't have this? Or have the valves leak? I thought it was due to the companies using parts made in china, but is this also true with say... Edelbrock?
.0095" tir....so a preliminary pressure/leakdown test is advisable.
May be getting Afr heads for my 68 camaro. I'm hesitant on getting the complete heads as opposed to the bare heads. 1600 for 1900 for complete. Must be Chinese valves etc.
Don't be so fast to knock the Chinese (and I'm not one). Their bad stuff is crap, like bad stuff is everywhere, but their good stuff is really good because their hi tech factories are all pretty new and have the latest equipment. There is no difference to a Swedish Asea 3D milling machine being operated by a Chinese guy in China, as there is an American (or Mexican) doing the same work using it in the USA.
Back in the 50s and 60s we used to say the same about "made in Japan". You wouldn't do that now. The same for Korea. I used to work at Lexus Australia. We had half the failure rate as did BMW. But people are wiseing up to the prejudice being pushed out these days. Question: What assault weapon is the go to for Special Forces around the world, including SAS, SEALs and Delta Force etc in the USA? The Colt M4, right? Well ALL M4's are made in Japan by Miroku, under license because their version is built with better tolerances and reliability. Its also where Winchester, SAKO, Weatherby and Ruger rifles are made. Their quality control is much higher.
Manufacturing is a global business and multinationals companies will seek out the best raw materials and the best engineering regardless of there its located.
here in Australia we screwed our manufacturing 20 years ago because the then government let the floodgates open to gear from other countries. its taken 20 years to get in in balance and our government is soon to announce a budget surplus this year. The difference is if we want China to buy all their iron ore and coal from us, we have to be prepared to buy stuff from them. All of our major trading partners are countries where we have a balanced trade. They need us and we need them. Its this policy that makes us good to deal with. There is no room for politics. Its just good business.
Then Chinese stuff is junk
So i imagine its the same with all that shiny crap. Like you buy an after maket crankshaft and your pistons are all firing a couple degrees off and the journalals arent centered correctly to the bore so your pistons drag one side of thecylinder, eyc etc.???? Nobody can do their damn jobs anymore.
You are correct. Everyone wants to criticize the China parts and say they need a lot of extra work to make them right, but the US parts are the same way. None of it is "right" out of the box.
Hi Is there a crack from sparkplug hole to the exhaust port.
And what exact application are theses afrs for?
I just ordered a custom set of 1399s from AFR and seeing a video like this raises questions especially considering the heads are pushing $2,000 after tax.
~Edit~
Never mind I wont get a reply and after watching your other video I realize now you are nothing but a fearmongering hack that have faulty tools that you proclaim to be a problem with the heads. If these heads from AFR has the common problem you proclaim then there would have been a huge class action lawsuit against them.
Look at all the pitting on the surface where it meets the block, just under the seat he's working on. It looks like a well used head.
So if I want a set of heads, where do I go?
Chuck Alexander use your stock and build em. I cut my own 305 heads at my buddy’s shop. It’s great to become friends with a machine shop owner. But you screw up, the heads are done for...
Maybe ls heads you can use stock and build because they flow so well stock but not the same for others like ford heads.
I check my stray women the same way👍
Avoid aftermarket women... stick with the wife...
You would think someone would put a better head out that was ready to role and still the market
Did u say who makes that head ?? Isn't that the purpose of the video to help out enthusiasts as myself?? Or was u boosting your profession? Either way idc and understand , but if u are trying to help us out start by putting names out there man so we can know WHO NOT TO BUY FROM ..LOL TY for your time. .how much would u charge to assemble a set of after markets bare.
Nice work! I'm interested in purchasing some heads for an LS1 that have been worked by you. I really appreciate your attention to detail. I would like information on purchasing some heads from your shop. Thank you for this video!
where are you located sir?
Wow that was a very good vid!!!!!
Correct me if I'm wrong but couldn't you just use valve grinding compound and the valve to create a better seat match?
alot of material to grind with compound
Kevin Hontz Five months later, has the first valve come in yet? Seriously that amount of run out would take a very long time. The guide would be worn out by time it was done.
Lapping is different. It mates the valve to the seat. But if the seats are not concentric to the guide, it will leak no matter how much you lap them. That's why the guy in the video cut the seats, because trying to lap off .0010 of material by hand would mean you would be 80 years old by the time you finished one valve. Figuratively speaking.
So the moral of the story is to buy bare heads and work with a local machine shop to finish them yourself?
nandoGdog yea that sounds stupid heads aren't cheap nor bill on getting them worked (ported/ polished)
Nah. You can do a lot of this stuff yourself, or at least I do.
thanks saved me time thats dumb
nandoGdog moral of the story is buy used with the money you saved have a good head guy go through them
A lot of the machine shops are no better
WOW.
How bad are the trickflow 170cc heads? I am blown away. So this could be a serious oil burn off problem and more?? I have a boosted motor and going to build a new dart short block and need reliability
+MrStangerbanger Bad valve to seat concentricity would cause low engine compression and most likely lead to
valve guides wearing out prematurely.
It is especially important to ensure the valves are sealing on a boosted engine. It's important on a N/A engine but more so if you plan on running a power adder.
In the building of any engine for a say street performance car is it preferable to have the customer let the builder source all the parts for the motor?
Rather than the customer buying parts that won’t really work well together?
Sadly soon all combustion cars and trucks including classics will be banned from public streets in entire EU and Scandinavia :-(
In Germany the Green Peoples Party gave order to shorten fuel supply from 2025
on by reducing all conventional fuel stations to only one state operated central gas station per city or county. Car washs will be forbidden too because they are climate killers, now they want to slow down all the gas station pumps from 20 litre per minute to 2 litre per minute...From 2027 on in the EU certain car spare parts will be banned too....as exhaust systems, turbo chargers and even some engine and gearbox oils...California and New York will do the same from 2027 on.... So no investments should be done in oil burning cars any longer....They even created a new kind of crime here, called emissions and smoke crime. (BABVVEN & TEBBVEN & BEFVO laws)!!
9 thousandths run-out. ..and it PASSED quality control! ?!
Doesn't say much about the quality.
Dave M yup, they could save hundreds of dollars a year by not putting qc stickers on stuff thats not fit to wear them
They batch check them at the assembly area. What that means, is they may check the tenth head out of maybe 100. ( Who knows if their checking tools have regular calibration or not.) So they slap the stickers on the other 99.....whether they are jacked up or not.
When you say runout are you referring to concentricty of the bore?
The seat is 9 1/2 thousands farther from the guide centerline on one side than the other... in other words, the valve will leak badly... under 1 thousandths is desirable...
another example of why to leave this hobby, a complete waste of money. companies use you as a test bench
chevy vega your right I agree nothing you buy is race ready you have to make it race ready after spending alot of money you get bent over again spending even more money
Yeah, this isn't even street ready let alone race.
Where can I buy those dial indicators for checking the valve seats?
Sunnen... or just use a valve and dye to check it... spin the valve and see if it wears the dye off all the way around...
Do you have any experience with aluminum eBay heads? Thought about getting them bare and having a valve job done
Go ahead, if you enjoy spending another $1,000 to get them into usable shape.
And I thought AFR were one of the better ones? How much would a cheap head be out?
All those head manufacturers outsource the guide and seat work, could be anybody almost. We've gotten pairs of heads from edelbrock that were done on totally different machinery. The only heads that were correct out of the box were a set from Brodix. All aftermarket blocks and heads are just potentially good cores until they are properly machined, most are junk.
Cana box for 2003 hondai elontra 2.0
if your machine is seeing the same thing its the machine machine the machine first dude try it it works.
Imagine dropping 2 grand on a set of heads and having to have $500 in machine work done to them before you can even bolt them on.
They would work just fine out of the box..will work better with a little love or valve job...but this particular head has a crack in it 5:16 between the spark plug hole and the exhaust valve seat making all this work a potential waste of time and money...
harry guy good thing they have lifetime warranty
so nice beautiful
GOOD JOB THOSE OF YOU WITH NEGATIVE COMMENTS SHOULD RE WATCH THE VIDEO.
nice
These heads come bare so the seats haven’t even been cut for valves
Bipolar Gamers : likely true. But an unsuspecting customer may not no that and assemble them only to have low vacuum and shit power. At minimum I assemble and fill combustion chamber with liquid and let it sit overnight. A literal “leak down” so to speak.
1:30 "It really doesn't want to zero...But...." (I will use my horribly inaccurate clapped out tools that have been banged around my shop, and haven't been calibrated since new, to show you that just touching them makes the needle move like a ceiling fan, and MY WORK IS SUPERIOR!) If you brought those tools or that attitude towards tools to a NASCAR level engine shop...you'd be escorted to the door.
Is it the Valve guide it self or the casting machined in the head the valve guide is pressed into?
The valve guide hole/guide should have been in the proper spot no matter the casting error... the error could be hole placement or valve seat placement or both... or bad machining tools...
Are they all made in china??
Get accurate!
Probably not 2k heads. But still.
They are AFR. They don't make heads that cost less than 2k
You know I don’t ever remember getting a set of complete heads and could bolt them right onto the engine first of all I just would NOT do that even if I bought them from GM. in the 46 years I've being doing engine work racing building I've never ever had an after market head that you could just bolt on out of the box there is no such thing and people who do this will waste an engine..
What if they were put together by people who do race like weingartner racing or spier racing heads?
They do their own valve jobs and assemble a bare casting from whatever manufacturer you want. Or at least I believe they assemble them.
They do it for racing heads to accept those are bagged and sent to you for assembly.
@@KingJT80 - They should be better...
@@BuzzLOLOL you're not gonna get better as far as mixed market economies go
BUT BUT BUT AFR IS THE BEST EVARRR, said everyone on mustang forums. I'll take my shitty production iron gt40p heads and have a great machine shop do some great work with them and come close to or better than most aftermarket aluminum heads for half the price...not having to wonder if I'm gonna drop a valve at 6000 rpm. That being said, I don't know this guy, and it could be that HIS tools and gaugues are the ones that are a little off. Find a guy you can trust to do your machine work.
For what you'd spend reworking production heads, you could buy a set of AFR's and have the machine shop go over them for the same money. Unless the shop owner is a buddy that cuts you a break on price.
And since we're talking special effects here which always seem to impress the stupid here's one for you pressurize the port with the crappy valve job at 5 PSI maybe even 3 would work with acetylene right out of the old torch bottle. Hey Bubba your valve job is leaking perhaps you can name your new leaking heads dragon slayers. A fellow can dream right?
Nine thou runout!! Christ on a bike, that is horrendous!! If anyone wants a visual indication of how much that is, just look at a feeler gauge!! And people wonder why engines drop valves!
turboslag clueless what does dropping a valve have to do with valve seat runout . nothing only way your are you to drop a valve is if the valvetrain rockers arms, push rods ,cam or is a mechanical issue or improper adjustment , any other engine dropping a valve for that matter .another wannabe car enthusiast
Paul Denino stfu you troll how old are you manchild
231mac stfu you clueless Zionist slave I bet your American to and only know rubbish V8 lump mate I’ve been in the automotive industry for more then 13 years now muppet also how would runout cause a valve to break or damage the engine for the incorrect runout also how can you check for run out in a valve if it’s already installed in the head through the bronze guide.last time I’ve checked I’m sure all of this is checked then the engine builder or person doing this at home would do like in blueprinting engine . So how can you have a runout issue you make no sense
231mac and you own a shitbox Jeep too 😂😂sad as fuck You muppet
Spaz Girl Do they even teach grammar in your shithole country? Wow. Since you clearly know nothing about engines, I'll have to imagine that you didn't know that valves often ROTATE. Having a lot of runout causes the valve to be bent radially, over and over, weakening the stem near the tulip. Make sense yet? I can type slower if it'll help your slow ass keep up. And how do you check for runout with a valve installed??? Now we KNOW you're a complete imbecile, lol.
i rebuilt my motor and used edelbrock only
Of all the new heads we check edelbrocks usually seat the worst.
causeimbatmaaan .ohhhhh? i thought quality was job 1.. here in usa ..vic edelbrock hates china i saw the interview
Does a good compression check and leak down check expose these problems ?
@@causeimbatmaaan same results here👍
thank you!!
This is pure bull he is trying to survive in a market were you can buy brand name out of the box heads ready to run (the china ones do have issues) I have owned a high performance machine shop for over 30 years. I have checked MANY seats for run out . I have replaced the gauge twice because they are worthless when they get sloppy.
He cant zero the gauge because its worn out and sloppy Sunnen seat gauges are very expensive. Or he is using a to small pilot to run a little scam.
Shops? like this are why people buy crate engines and just buy complete heads and bolt them on. They have destroyed the market .
if you are a competent HONEST builder you will build up a clientele that is willing to pay you for your skill and experience (you will be working cheap per hour but if you enjoy it its worth it.)
Then there are the ones like this that try to con there way through selling unneeded work quoting fake power numbers and when people call them on it there like bill clinton they slip there way out of it.
Of coarse this is just my opinion
Tom Hutchins well Tom I categorically disagree with you. The quality of off the shelf heads - in any price range requires thorough checking.
This is why it is better to buy bare heads. The price is only about +$500 over new off the shelf and you get a quality and known product.
This goes for new machined engine blocks too. Everything needs checking.
They are not ready to run despite what you say.
I am a mechanic rather than a machinist, and i don't care people do and don't do with their own gear. Let me say, I'm fitting a brand new Chevy to my fj40 and i opted for a short motor. I supplied budget aluminum cores for the heads, GMP beehive springs, Comp retainers to suit the springs and the gave the lot to my machinist and he supplied all the rest + the machining including surfacing and squaring the heads and CCing the chambers to my specs.
What does this say when a professional mechanic goes this route on his own motor?
It says to me i don't want the grief i see other people having on my own shit.
Now you can go the conspiracy theory route about this machinist trying to create work for himself through fear but you are dead wrong on this.
I marvell that a man of your experience would say what you've said!
You need to RE WATCH THE VIDEO carefully, you will see that your opinion is un founded. You are wrong on this one buddy.
Did you watch the video? Cause when he starts the valve cut you can hear it isn’t cut right you can hear it scrape on 1/3 of the valve and totally miss the rest
I think you are pulling something!!!!!! And it's not my leg!
if you do anything...buy the factory original motors heads parts ect from the dealership!!! Too expensive you say...look how much bread you poured into that oil burning pile of garbage you have now, and to tear it apart and do it wright...$$$$
Factory parts out of the box are the same way. Always have been. Anything mass produced is erratic.
Just buy AFR heads
These are AFR heads...
Thats Junk Heads. Can that bea trou!! Its 0.010 mm.