Rebuilding head soon - need advice!

jpsandberg

Registered User
Ok,

There are about 50k miles since my motor was last rebuilt (top and bottom). I have some valve chatter, and think I have some wornguides? (puff of smoke for 2-3 seconds upon startup)

Also, I was using about a quart of oil between oil changes (untill I started leaking oil from the oil pan, which is dumping pretty good) since engine was rebuilt. Didn't know any better and the shop guy told me that was normal because of all electronics. Boy, was I an idiot then... (haha - still might be now too!)

I want to get the heads redone, any suggestions?? I want to keep it cheap, and will do the labor myself (besides machine work and head rebuild) I want more performance, but still want to keep the price down. I have new full SCP exhaust with high-flow cats. I have stock manifolds (will port them while I am in there) and have fresh air intake with 78 MAF. (going to be adding SC pulley after rebuild)

1. What size should I get heads ported? (intake? exhaust?) any other machining I should ask for?

2. will I need to change my valves? Guides? Who do I purchase then from and how much am I looking at? If going performance, should these be different sizes than stock? (remember, trying to stay cheap - XMAS took some $$ out of my pocket)

3. where do I get felpro gaskets the cheapest? (and quickly)

4. What are head studs? Should I add them? (do I have them already?)

5. Is it going to be way expensive to have the heads performance-redone? How much more than just having them stock redone? (just looking for general shop price differences so I have idea before I call)

I hope to start tearing into it on sunday, and will either call today, tomorrow or monday for machine shops, so hopefully some of the experts here can answer quickly :)

(also, one other note - I am smelling oil burning when I turn heater on so thinking head gasket is going - that is what made me descide to finally do this)

Thanks, and look forward to your suggestions!

Sincerely,
Jonathan
 
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Check with Morana racing. They have a link in the links section of the club homepage. They have prices starting around the $100 range. They are in Canada, so you would have to figgure in shipping too (unless you feel like a road trip). I am going to go and check out their facility and see about having them do a performance rebuild of my engine and my heads.
 
heads

It's a good idea to clean up the bowls and take the sharp corners off your radii. If your talented with a die grinder, go ahead and port out your exhaust and intake ports.

I went with larger valves on mine. 1.84" SB Chevy valves will fit into the intake without new valve seats. I put 1.60" SB Chevy valves into the exhaust and it required new valve seats to fit them in. If you go with larger valves, it's a good idea to try to unshroud them in the chambers.
 
Thanks Guys

Thank you both for your comments/suggestions. I appreciate it!

Is there no one else that has any suggestions? I've read in the past about people putting on "head studs" or something like that. Does anyone know what these are?

Also, does anyone have any general price ranges I should expect from a machine shop?

Thanks,
Jonathan
 
Jonathan,

There are several places out there doing high performance SC heads. Coy Miller, Stegimier, Chris Wise, Dr. Fred, Morana and Bob Johnson to name the most popular.

How to rework them can't easily be described. In some areas material is added by welding and removed in others. Each of the places do it a little different. Some use larger valves requiring larger springs and will generally match a specific cam to the flow of the heads.

Some like using, stock seats, others go larger, some perfer stud mounted rockers, others perfer pedistal mounts, some use new guides, others sleeve the stock guides. In most cases the pushrods will also need to be changed to get the proper geometry. It takes about $800-900 in parts to make a good set of high performance heads (w/oversized valves), and the rest is labor resulting in an average price of around $2,000 for a set.

You can't just make the port openings larger and expect the heads to flow better, doing that may actually make them worse. To get an idea of what is done take a look of some of the pictures in this link.

http://www.apten-us.com/scheads/38heads.html

David
 
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