morana heads

scxr7

Registered User
well..I'm surprised to say that Morana has let me down. I recieved a pair of single port heads from him. the drivers side head looks fine. but the passenger side head is another story.. 2 of the 3 combustion chamber walls are gouged and it looks like they were damaged somehow. combustion chamber number 5(middle chamber) looks like it was ground with a die grinder on the side walls.

I immediately called Morana when I opened the box and noticed the defects. In one short sentence he basically told me "oh well"... I asked him if he did this, or if it was damaged in shipping.. I didn't get a straight answer. Then I asked him if I would have possible head gasket problems, and he said "If I thought it would be a problem I wouldn't have sent out the heads". which I believe him, since he seems like a nice guy.

I then ask him if I should get them fixed, he said "I know they are bad heads, but they were all I had to work with". I didn't know what to say after that. Should I take the heads to a local machine shop and see what they say? should I send the heads back and ask for my money back? as of right now, it doesn't seem like morana wants to help me out. Every time I asked him if it would be a problem. he told me to put the heads on the car and don't worry about it. well..I'm sorry but i'm going to worry about it. I don't want to put the heads on, only to have to take them off half and hour later with a blown head gasket from a bad machine job..

Here is a link to 4 pictures of the two problem spots. It links to another forum where the question was asked.

http://www.yellowbullet.com/forum/sh...d.php?t=137170
 
The rough edge should be cleaned up if it is in the combustion chamber. Otherwise it'll create a hot spot. What type of head gaskets were you going to use? The finish looks a bit rough to me and my guess is it wouldn't be ideal for a MLS gasket.
 
I was thinking of getting a triple layer gasket from morana. along with arp studs. since I'm going to be running 17-20 psi with 9.4:1 compression pistons.
 
Looks pretty rough and I would also be very leary about installing them. If it were me, I'd be sending them back for a refund and get a set from someone who cares about doing a quality job.

David
 
The first thing you need to do is lay a gasket over it to see where the fire ring actually falls. It doesn't look to me like the chamber has been opened anywhere near far enough to be infringing on the fire ring. Then I would get the heads re-surfaced on a machine capable of producing an MLS ready surface. It will probably be fine but to be sure you'll need to do what I said.

And I would use Felpro MLS gaskets.
 
These look awful...I would contact him and get some compensation,at least to cover the cost of the additional work to complete what you paid him to do...If he doesnt want to be helpful I would spread the word on the web.


You have to wonder what he was thinking to send them out like that...He obviously doesnt take pride in his work like David D.
 
he soaked me for 500 bucks. :( didn't even do a 3 angle valve job or anything..

Man tough break. I picked up a set of Stage 1 heads from Morana a few years back ('02-'03) and had some issues too...2 bolts were broken off in the screw holes for the valve covers...besides that the port work was good and surface was clean.

He actually refunded me $100 off the heads which at the time were like $400 if I recall.

I'd trust Dave's advice hands down...not worth $500 tho, thats shady if you ask me. How was your turn around time? Mine was terribly slow.

-Tim
 
I didn't really have a turn around time, he sent me a pair of single port windstars and I sent him a set of 96 single ports. I took my heads to the machine shop an hour ago, I called Tom and he's gonna take care of the repair costs.

He's a good guy. I'll admit, I should have gotten my old heads rebuilt locally, but for the same price for a shop here to have them rebuilt, compared to Tom's price, they were the same, so I went with Tom since he's been around 3.8's the longest.

All in all. the heads are usable, nothing wrong with them. they just LOOK bad, they'll work fine though.
 
I also had a broken bolt in one of the heads and 2 stripped bolt holes. hmm..maybe its a morana thing. lol
 
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