thoughts on head straightening

[madkaw]

5 hours ago, Patcon said:

Yes, that is my understanding. The heads I have seen done are stripped clean of all the valve train and dressed on both sides. you end up with two flat perfectly true and parallel sides. Otherwise you add distortion to the cam. Also I haven't ever seen a milling machine that could mount a head with the valve train installed or a situation where you would want all the milling chips strewn throughout the valve train. I might be mistaken on this but this is how I believe it is done.

I was just trying to clarify your statement - not playing semantics. We started the thread talking about straightening ( flattening ) the head. I wanted to clarify you were referring to cutting the head on both sides and not straightening both sides.

The last head I had done for someone I had 3 sides cut. Some early heads have some corrosion ( pitting) along the mating surface of the intake and exhaust can use a nice shave. It can get expensive when you start doing 3 sides . 

Anytime there is warpage on the head , both sides needs to be checked for sure. Yes the head has to be torn all the way down to cut the cam side of the head , but that’s just the way it goes if the cam don’t spin freely

Edited August 3, 2019 by madkaw

[David F]

Ah, true on the Z engines.  I was mostly thinking of my BMW cylinder heads where the cam journals/towers cannot be removed as they are part of the casting.