haha, that turned out good didn't it steve? i'm proud of the way i mounted that regulator, lol!

Thanks for all the info. I went ahead and dumped oil all over the bores and the deck. I'll be heading out ot my machine shop tomorrow and grabbing some of that other stuff and giving it a shot.

As for the port job. From what I can tell it wasnt done by the guy I bought the heads from but by a friend of his who is also a member here... with around 3,000 posts. When you buy parts on TGO you can often find out interesting tidbits about them by going through post histories... but it's always possible that the set of heads the seller and his buddy were working on were a different set... even if it seems unlikely.

Those RHS Vortecs... how are they drilled for both intake patterns... that doesn't make any sense? What good does drilling for both patterns do when the ports are going to be different?

And it's looking like that's $700 for one head... I can get a set from SDPC for barely more than that.

http://www.tristatecylinderhead.com/...roducts_id=145

I was thinking about grabbing a set of those but that almost looks too cheap... it kinda bothers me. Anyone from Indiana that's heard of them? Are they anywhere near you Steve? Heard anything about them?



Yeah the black overspray on the bracket really sets it off. I kid I kid! It does look damn good in there. SHould add some free hp since I've got real hot rod parts on there now.

As for the heads... of course... everything has it's price. Unfortunately Im about as broke as I can be for the immediate future. That regulator is just going to have to sit and look pretty til then, but it does a good enough job of it. I've had a lot of really good dealing on TGO, guys like you and a few others have kept me from losing faith in it all together! Im not sure I'm going to buying anymore used cyl heads though... at least not from people I havent dealt with before.

Hope You let us know the out come. More importantly if the seller does the right thing!
Aluminum Edelbrock Vortec heads are nice. A machine shop lead me to believe Edelbrock makes the GM oem Vortec heads. One or my car mags. shown the Edelbrock Vortec just out flowed the GM. Also many articals say not to port the Vortec heads. The short block looks awsome. Like stated above oil is cheap. In 60 days from now this will be fading from the memory...I'll keep my fingers crossed.

The RHS Pro Torker Vortec Heads part # RHS12410K1 are 170cc/64cc 2.02/1.60 valves . These Heads flow 27cc more than the GM #906 Heads . And they are drilled for early GEN I or Vortec intake mounting . Assemblies include LT-1 springs steeL retainers heat treated Locks seals . and 3/8" screw in studs . These heads are ready to bolt on . And are the best Vortec heads Made . 2nd to none . They cost $689.98 for an assembled Pair . Go to www.competitionproducts.com Call them and ask . That place sell real good stuff .

$700 assembled? Assembled with what? I need screw in studs and guideplates... but that still seems like a pretty decent deal to me as long as it's for two of them!

The RHS Vortec's should look like this right out the box . But when you call ask about the guide plates . Some of the places build up the RHS Bare castings . And by the way the RHS castings are stronger than the GM #906s .

The assembled price is for 1 pair of heads.$689 (2 heads)
the bare price is per/head $261

In response to his PM:

wow - I understand where your at. Nothing to apologize for.


Yes, I ported them, for free, as he's a good freind from my college days. - I didn't want to go that large with them, but at the time, he was going to use 2.10/1.65 valves and I was trying to avoid loosing velocity at the seat. Yes, I ground through 2 ports(no idea about the 3rd). I paid, out of my own pocket, to have them welded by a shop that is unfortunately out of business(guess we may now know why). They pressure tested them with me standing there and there were no issues at the time, but obviously their weld job wasn't up to snuff. His dad did do the valve job and spring set-up, I told them to verify the pressure test, not sure if they did or not.

He doesn't get on here much, if any, anymore. He seems to have lost interest in his 3rd gen. I will try to contact him myself. - Although the work was done for free, he did buy all the parts; valves, guides, springs/ret/loc, etc. He did have all intentions of using the heads, he only decided to sell them when he was able to pickup the patriots for the balance owed by a customer.

I'll do what I can to help. - I have a set of stock vortecs myself. Take-offs, haven't checked them out yet. If they check out I would be willing to work something out that way.

Feel free to contact me anytime, sorry for your problems - Justin
-also, as an fyi, I sometimes get online often, other times not so much. Between a car payment, mortgage, and wedding plans I'm a bit financially strapped, so net access is not available at home. I will do my best to keep up with this, but if I don't respond immediately, please understand.

This may have a happy ending yet guys.

The seller is willing to try to work something out with me so far, I'll let you know if he comes through.

good to hear that it looks like you will get the heads you want to replace these

I made two major mistakes on those heads. The first being that I agreed to attempt porting them for that large of valve, the second being that I had just ported the Topline(RHS) vortecs for my 'burban before-hand.

I made no money on the port work, nor the sale of them. I did the work for a friend, even ended-up investing some of my own money into them because of my screw up. Obviously the shop I had "fix" them didn't get their welds proper. My best guess would be (since they pressure tested fine after the welding and the re-clean) the welds were insufficient and "let-go" as soon as they cast started to absorb some heat upon initial start-up.

As I have told Kyle, I have a good running '97 truck I'm going to be pulling the motor out of next week. It's a 4-bolt main, steel crank, hyd roller short block, thus I have other plans for the motor. I will have the heads magnafluxed & pressure tested first, then I will do a full bowl job and radius clean-up. I will then work with the seller on getting the heads to him (I'm about 3-4 hours south) and he will have the seats ground and the rocker pads machined for the guideplates/screw-in studs and he will ship them out.

Since I had nothing to do with the sale of these heads, nor did I make any money off them, it will probably take me atleast 2-3 weeks before I can get to this. IMO I am going considerably above and beyond to help make this right, I won't drop everything I'm doing just to donate my own parts plus more time and work. - If there happens to be an unforseeable problem with my heads, then the seller plans to locate another set.

later, Justin

I haven't heard from either of them in quite a while...



We'll see what happens. But I figured some of you MIGHT care for an update.

good luck, hate to see you get screwed on it.

I wonder if there is a court case here?
Did you keep all the transaction histories?
Did you keep the part where the heads are in great condition per the seller?
Seems to me you can get a new set of heads and your time/labor of install, de-install and reinstall of a new set out of this if it comes down to going to court. you can get the cost of gaskets and and the oil products, water, antifreeze etc...I hate to say it but sometimes you have to do what you have to do. That is what the courts are there for, to help those that can not help themselves.

You may want to look into it

85:

Shagwell has already cowboyed up and offered to do his part to make good on the deal.
Lets leave it at that for now. S&*it happens.

Courts are a $$$last ditch, costly remedy$$$$$ that usually only benefits blood sucking lawyers.

A court would very unlikely award $$$'s for consumables on a R&R.
Any implied or expressed warranty (if there was one) would be a "limited warranty" such as offered in writing by typical suppliers (new manufacturers or rebuilders of automotive parts.)
In these expressed warranties it is clearly limited to the repair or replacement of the part purchased. The specific wording and limitations of these long established limited warranties and previous court challenges would show clear legal presidence as to the limit of any obligation of the seller as to a remedy.

The guy who did the work (Shagwell) has shown no malice intent and offered to remedy at his cost as to a replacement head.
The buyer has the obligation of returning the defective heads to the seller if requested upon replacement. The buyer has some responsibility as being the "engine builder" to inspect the parts as nessessary. The welding repair in the bowls and excessive exhaust porting should have been a clue.

If the seller comes thru with his end of the remedy of replaceing the heads, it is very very unlikely a court would award further compensation to the buyer.

looks like you will have to chalk this one up to lesson learned. I hate hearing you got screwed on here

Pretty much my thoughts on the whole thing too. I considered small claims, but I'd probably have to drive about 6 hours to get there and bother with it, and I'm not sure if it's been too long already or what I really need to prove to get reimbursed anyway.

Sometimes you get burned I guess.

And for those who are curious, I bought the heads from the member "dans87gta" - Daniel Anderson. He had plenty of time to 1. clear his name and 2. Publicly announce that he'd make it right. He still has the time and oppurtunity to do so.



A more specific history of the heads.

I put up an ad wanting some nice heads for my motor. You can see how long ago this is and how long this project has been in the works for me.

http://www.thirdgen.org/techboard/en...tml?highlight=

Post #6 is the seller.

If you search his past posts (You bet your *** I did at the time) you'll see where he comes across the heads:

http://www.thirdgen.org/techboard/te...ght-place.html (being in the right place)

In another thread he responds with some more relevant stuff.

http://www.thirdgen.org/techboard/tpi/372432-cam.html (cam ?)


Some interesting quotes directly from my private messages with Daniel:





Never a SINGLE mention of the welds and going through the water jacket or the repair. NEVER. And those springs are barely good for .525 lift anyway. Thy're not bad springs, tehy worked perfectly for what I was going to do with them, but they were nowhere near as nice as was claimed.



Unfortunately, Dans87gta doesn't ever get on TGO anymore so I doubt he cares very much. He certainly hasn't cared enough to stay in touch with me so I"m not all that concerned with calling him out at this point. He has plenty of time to make things right adn clear his name. It's up to him now, but as it stands things dont look too good for the rest of us. I think being informed that the heads were ported through the water jacket and later repaired is pretty ****ing important information to just glaze over.

Again, my mistake for not picking up on it right away, but that doesn't absolve anyone else.

man I Really hate that this happend to you Kyle, you seem to be a pretty straight forward guy and man, What a SOB for doing this