I've finished my heads and it only cost me $162.58. I'll have some pics up in a couple days as they are on a friends camera.

 

162 dollars, for a bottle you coulda had used our machine and a quick crash course. Coulda even had a practise head.

If you want to see if a good job was done take your valve and then flick it through your valve guide letting your valve head bounce off the seat. If it makes a complete thin black ring around your valve it is a good grind.

I did my 292 valves this way and seems to be good.

 

Ryan, you have a valve grinding machine?
Hmmmm.....

 

Good deal Nathan!! I bet your realy excited about that!

Ryan, do you know how to port and polish heads? If so, I may need a crash course, and I will gladly buy a bottle, or 3

 

I did all the valve grinding and seat grinding at school. I did the 3 angle seat grind and 44 degree valve face. I guess your method works but the correct way to measure valve face and valve seat. Also you can't grind the valve seat unless your valve guides are within spec.

You want about a 45 degree seat of 1/32 to 1/16 for intake and 1/16 to 3/32 for exhaust.

Make about 5 marks on your valve face with a sharpie and put it in the head. Rotate the valve 90 degrees back and forth. Pop the valve out and look at the marker marks to see how the valve seat is compared to the valve face. You want the scratch mark to be about 1/32 from the valve margin.

The $162.58 consisted of: (I know Chevy parts )
16 - Chevy 350 adjustable rocker studs (Now my rocker arms are completely adjustable and don't have to worry about custom pushrods)
16 - Chevy 350 positive valve stem seals (No oil burning here)
16 - Bronze valve guides
16 - New springs (Original springs were 30 lbs under spec)

Since I built the heads myself, I know all the specs. I have clearance for a maximum of .600 lift (before the valve keeper hits the valve seal) but my springs are only good for about .500 lift. I only plan for a lift of .475 but I know I won't have any problems. I also cleaned any carbon out of the combustion chamber and the heads took several baths in the tank so any scale has been removed from the coolant passages. I think I came out pretty cheap since I could sell these heads for about $500.

 

Thats awesome too Nathan. Does ford not have good adjustable studs, or valve stem seals? That is cheap for a good set of heads too.

 

You can get adjustable screw in studs from Ford for like $70 but I bought some junk 350 heads from a classmate for $20 and stole all the press in studs. No one makes the good valve stem seals for Ford engines but the Chevy ones fit perfect. You do need a special cutter tool to make the seals fit. The funny part is my Ford heads needed less cutting to make them fit than the Chevy heads.

 

Thats pretty cool. You definatly know your stuff man

 

I (ok dad) has a valve grinding machine. All I've ever done to heads is the basic grind heads and seats. I looked at doing a 3-point grind but I simply had too much carbon and figured why. Doing valves on a modern motor would be a sinch since you are running hyd. lifters versus a *****hutt 30 head or 292 Ford heads are mech valve lifters, there were some fun measurements since I did not want to use all the slack adjuster up on my rockers.

The thing I thought I screwed up is that I used grain truck heads so the exhaust valves had caps on the end of the since they use a different style of clamp to hold the spring, but worked out in the end. But then the caps had to be ground, bah thats another story.

 

So all in all, is it fairly hard to do the heads with your machine Ryan?

 

If you have decent depth perception and half a brain it becomes nature by the 16th valve. LOL

It's quite easy after the first few practise valves.

 

Right on, nice to hear its not that hard

 

Sweet deal dueller pretty good for 162 then you could turn around and sell them for that much

 

But dont sell them unless you sell them to me

 

They aren't for sale but I will trade them for a set of AFR 165's