Morona Heads...anyone else have this?

Tim Groth

SCCoA Member
Well guys since the old headgaskets went a while back I thought it would be a must to go ahead and get some Port and Polished heads from Morona to do the job right...sounds good right? Well anyways I got around to getting the car rebuilt this weekend and well the heads looked great but for some odd reason the bolt holes weren't preped at all. Took an extra 2 hours of labor to clean out the threads just inorder to get the bolts in and one of the bolts on the vavle covers wasn't even drilled out?! One hole was still so tight after cleaning it out we had to use spacers because it still wouldn't go down!

Just wondering if anyone eles has used these heads and had this luck or did I just get a bad set? Tom Morona seemed like a good guy when I talked to him so I want to know others luck before I speak with him.

-Tim
 
Over the past year or so we've probably done 4-5 head replacements on SC's up here in Toronto amongst the club. Some where from Tom some from other places, to us it has become a simple given that we chase all thread holes with a tap and clean them out. Each time we have found some sort of debris packed into the threads from the cleaning and shot blasting or whatever they do when they clean those heads up.
 
Oh man, don't get me started.

I want to make one thing clear, I'm not trying to bash Tom or convince anyone not to do business with him. That being said I've purchased several of Tom's products and services in the last year and there has not been one single component that didn't need to be finished by me, some of the things were costly to fix. If I wasn't an experienced mechanic who's been doing this for-ever and didn't know where to go and who to see I would have been lost.

Four barrel intake: The EGR passages that run under the center leaked into the plenum, big vacuum leaks, splits that had been welded were ground too far down and had to be welded up again. The carb mounting pad isn't centered, stock two-barrel linkage is too short, four-barrel linkage is too long, made my own bracket. The carb mounting holes shoud be 5/16" like every freakin carb you can imagine putting onto this engine but were 3/8" instead. Had to drill the carb, now it fits this engine well only.

SC heads prepped for four barrel carb usage (ordered with the intake): Center divit inbetween the ports is a big mismatch to the four-barrel intake. Effectively the crank case, EGR passage (which leaks into the plenum) and plenum were all connected. I had to have the heads welded up.

Cam and double roller chain: Cam sproket wouldn't fit onto cam until cam flange was reduced so sproket would slide over flange. Bolt holes in sprocket weren't even close to matching the cam, I called Tom and was told they were supposed to be slotted, I could send it back (4 week minimum TX-CAN-TX) or do it myself. I did it using the old gear as a template by bolting them together.

Tom is a good machinest and a decent guy who's doing his best, he's not trying to screw anyone but I now refer to him respectfuly as the absent minded professor. Like he told me "Everybody wants their parts right away but there are no parts, I have to make everything by myself for these engines. Ford changes things more often than I change my underwear and I can't keep up with it all at times. Things get overlooked. I'm sorry for that." He has always offered to make things right for free but I just do it myself because I can and needed the car running ASAP. He's got a lot of unique parts for the Ford V6's and his prices are reasonable but he's not an exact science he's just a guy like the rest of us. Don't confuse engine building with Wal-Mart shopping there is no guaranteed satisfaction desk to go bitch at in race car building, expect problems. Every machine shop is run my humans and I've seen some do much worse than Tom over the years. None of them care as much about the 3.8 though. Also I think Tom has more of a handle on the later model stuff as that's the majority of his business, but the unfinished threads surprise me like, not at all.

So you should never take for granted that just because it came from Tom (or anyone else) it will be perfect, even Ford sends stuff out that isn't right all the time. When building custom motors never take anything for granted and always inspect everything, that's what the pros do so why should you expect to be different. It would be nice though. I've spent many a day chewing Toms a$$ when trying to put the damn things together but at least there's a guy who got me to the point of putting it together. It's a good thing nobody asked me when I was in the middle of the project, I was really pissed. I might not have been so nice, but reason returns when I fire it up and can't wipe the grin off my face.

Vernon
 
Morana HEADS...ANYONEELSE HAVE THIS

So far so good I have purchaced a cam, roller rockers and a double roller timing chain from Tom. Oh yeah and eagle rods and pistonsand guide plates, Everything went together as adversised. The guide plates are a pain to line up. If I have ever had a question he answered it for me. Tom is a small shop trying to do a lot of differant stuff. I like doing business with him and will continue to do so in the future. Tim
 
Well sounds like I'm not the only one... It just pissed me off that I had to spend $100 more for 2 hours of labor that shouldn't have been required to do the job. I mean when a vavle cover hole isn't even drilled out, I had to ask myself what sort of first impression is this guy trying to give me? My builder took pictures since I forgot my digital camera and I will post once they arrive.

Any who... I guess I will e-mail Tom and not be a jerk about the situation and see what he will do for me. He sounds like an honest and respectable guy from what everyone isw posting.

-Tim
 
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