Dr.Jass
Pastor of Muppets
Sometimes, it pays off.
When I dropped my J heads off at the machine shop years ago for the ton of work that needed to be done to them (cleaning, magnafluxing, modifiying the titanium valves to my desired size, totally-new valve guides instead of inserts for the smaller stems, valve job, spot-facing the valvespring seats, throat cut, resurfacing, and more), I was told the total ticket was going to be around $800. The machinist was doing some of the work at home, for which I'd directly pay him and the rest to the store with the machine shop--a competitor, no less. :doh: That would include Dave's home labor as well that at the shop.
I finally picked 'em up. I'd already paid Dave $150 a few years ago or so for modifying the valves, but I needed to square up with CarQuest and I wanted the heads so I can work on them next week while I'm on vacation.
So, I went over to square up today and pick up the heads, which still aren't assembled since I'm going to do porting on 'em. Dave told me he still hadn't resurfaced 'em since I wanted to cc them, and that he'd do the "finish" valve job when I'd finished in case I had a mishap and bumped a seat with a bur. I told him I wanted to make sure everything was paid now, so he tallied up the bill.
$332, including parts (including the parts: hardened seats, new guides, inner springs, and valve seals). :dance:
My guess? Over the last few years, some stuff was forgotten. There may be other factors which I won't explore here... but I expected to have around $1000 total into these heads, and I've got just over $600 including Lunati outer springs, Comp inners, Del West titanium locks and retainers, Del West titanium intake valves and Manley titanium exhausts (I might have that reversed), upgrading my rockers to Comp adjusters, the correct Comp chrome-moly pushrods for my application, and all the machine work.
Call me happy.
When I dropped my J heads off at the machine shop years ago for the ton of work that needed to be done to them (cleaning, magnafluxing, modifiying the titanium valves to my desired size, totally-new valve guides instead of inserts for the smaller stems, valve job, spot-facing the valvespring seats, throat cut, resurfacing, and more), I was told the total ticket was going to be around $800. The machinist was doing some of the work at home, for which I'd directly pay him and the rest to the store with the machine shop--a competitor, no less. :doh: That would include Dave's home labor as well that at the shop.
I finally picked 'em up. I'd already paid Dave $150 a few years ago or so for modifying the valves, but I needed to square up with CarQuest and I wanted the heads so I can work on them next week while I'm on vacation.
So, I went over to square up today and pick up the heads, which still aren't assembled since I'm going to do porting on 'em. Dave told me he still hadn't resurfaced 'em since I wanted to cc them, and that he'd do the "finish" valve job when I'd finished in case I had a mishap and bumped a seat with a bur. I told him I wanted to make sure everything was paid now, so he tallied up the bill.
$332, including parts (including the parts: hardened seats, new guides, inner springs, and valve seals). :dance:
My guess? Over the last few years, some stuff was forgotten. There may be other factors which I won't explore here... but I expected to have around $1000 total into these heads, and I've got just over $600 including Lunati outer springs, Comp inners, Del West titanium locks and retainers, Del West titanium intake valves and Manley titanium exhausts (I might have that reversed), upgrading my rockers to Comp adjusters, the correct Comp chrome-moly pushrods for my application, and all the machine work.
Call me happy.
