I decided I wasn't super confident with my heads being completely flat so I dropped them off at The Cylinder Head Exchange in Marietta at lunch today. A good hot tank and slight trim will do them good. Jay, the manager, came up from the back, took one glance at my heads: "Subaru 2.5 liter. These are hard to get your hands on. Off of a Legacy?" Yup, 2.5 DOHC Legacy Outback. I knew I was in good hands. I should have these things back shortly and will post up pics of the install as it comes along in my journal. Apparently you guys use this shop a lot? Knew them by reputation but didn't expect them to be knowledgeable on what I consider an oddball engine. I'll post results when I pick them up.
Hey drew glad to see you on here...I have used them in the past but not for subaru stuff. Nice to know they have experience, I know they have been around for a while.
$25 per head for a resurface, which includes a hot tank, was the only thing I requested. Thank goodness for the cleaning, as the PS pump developed a leak and coated the passenger-side head! I think their top-tier service was $230 per head for a new valve guides, 3-angle valve job, PNP, deck milling, etc. I think the guy said leak-down testing was $25 a head which confused me, but maybe their method is better than just setting the head upside-down and filling the combustion chamber with fluid? They will also pressure test the head for cracks for $25 per head, but I passed as I was just seeping oil from the head gaskets and had no overheating issues. On tear-down I was glad to see that the old HGs were single-layer crap and not MLS. Makes me more confident that the new MLS HGs will be more than sufficient to seal this puppy up for quite some time. Hopefully the lightweight crank & PS pulleys (thanks Wes!) and *slight* bump in CR will offset the reduction in gearing w/ the 3.90 trans and diff. I have tons of pics that I'll post up eventually. Its pretty tough to take time to post in the evenings as I'd rather spend the time working on this thing...
Got my heads back yesterday and everything looks clean and well done! I had a debacle with a sheared off bolt (cam cap) that the guys were able to fix for me. You SOHC guys don't have to worry about that sort of thing. The damage was bad and took some welding and a cam hone but everything looks perfect again. The price to deck both heads and weld/tap/hone the bad hole was $110. So $50 for the decking and $60 for the fixing, which I thought was quite a deal as they apparently spent many hours on it. I'd definitely use them again and am considering moving up the f25 stroker build for the s2k as the +1mm valve job and PnP seem a lot more affordable now. Maybe the Honda can put out 500+whp, gobs of torque, and be a reliable DD after all!