My buddy bought these AFR heads (210's) for his 400 sbc.
They are pretty, that is for sure, but upon closer inspection, we see that AFR neglected to de-burr all parts of the heads.

A called to AFR only resulted in an obligatory set of valve seals. My friend has to tear the heads down and finish de-burring them.

The main problem areas where the head was machined to allow push rods through.

This photo shows the general location of the problem. Lower left hand side of the picture, where the push rods would normally come through.

I would have expected more out of anything that cost $2300.

 

The next two shots show the actual burrs. Left un-noticed, these would not have done a brand new engine any amount of good.

 

Last one. It would have been so easy to finish the de-burring before the heads were assembled.

 

thats a shame. afr sounds to me like they are to busy getting money over the quality. unless of course they are all like this or this is just a goof up on one set.

 

From what I hear when AFR goofs up they will have a set of heads on your doorstep within a few days.

 

AFR seems to be slipping a bit lately.. they have a major backlog so perhaps that is not helping..

Other companies are coming out with better products at lower prices.. check out totalengineairflow.com for a good example..

 

I'll tell you next week when my 195s get here if it has the same burrs. Looks like their cutter was getting a bit dull. Think it's going to be close to a 2 month wait to get mine but the wait is almost over hehe heads are shipping out Friday.

 

Sweet dude I didnt know you ordered AFR's .

 

The reality is that they were only willing to send a new set of valve seals.

Regardless of whether they send replacement heads or new valve seals, poor quality product should not be going out the door.

S-D

 

I agree, but **** happens with the best and worst companies, and it is also how they deal with problems after the sale that makes a company good or bad. When my comp cam flattened a lobe on break in, they wanted something like 2 weeks to send me a new cam. I missed too many races because of them...

 

What does this statement mean? TEA doesn't market their OWN product, they buy other manufactuers heads at wholesale price, so they can sell at bargain prices. Their main speciality is head and intake porting, if that's what you meant. TEA is actually where I bought my AFR's for $1400 milled upgraded and everything. To get these heads ported is about $800, but they'd be flowing 300+cfm/230+cfm(ex).

Swerve, sorry about your friends heads. I know mine didn't like that when I got them a yr. ago. I hope this thing gets straightened out.

 

Guess I should of clarified that they weren't a manufacturer.. When I referred to product I am talking about their CNC heads that they will ship complete with a core charge and guarantee, I am stuck in LT1 mode focusing on the heads they make for that particular application.. oops..

my statement on afr still stands however..

 

Yep Should be able to get the rest of my parts in the next couple of weeks for the 350. Then it's time to save up for the machine shop costs lol (unless I can paint a couple of cars really quick). I'm gonna go talk to the machine shop thursday to get a ball park figure.

 

I'm hoping that this is an isolated case. The goal of this thread is to get people buying AFR heads to look at them and make sure they are ready to bolt on, not to bash AFR the company.

I haven't been posting to the 3rd gen boards for very long, but I know the last thing needed on this board or any of the 3rd Gen boards is another pissing match that spins out of control!

Best-
S-D

 

very well said

 

I don't think I would tear down the heads just to de burr those little burrs, they could be scrapped off without contaminating the head if you careful, but I agree AFR should have someone de burr that kind of thing before they were assembled. And if I ever paid that much for a set of assembled heads you can bet your a** I would tear them apart anyway just to confirm they were right, and check all the springs installed heights, you can't trust any company to do a proper job, you have to check their work. I checked their web site and didn't see anything about them being ISO 9000 compliant, that means they don't have the best quality control measures put into place.

 

I would say your buddy got a bad deal on that issue, but if you look at the manufacturing part of it, probably the guy who was tending the Milling machine probably didnt care or was just plain negligent and didnt bother to deburr the threw holes, and probably whomever was doing an inspection missed that set and who knows probably more. I agree with "EvilCartman" the cutter was probably dull, the feed lines show it, in the 2nd pic the feed lines arent consistent which is a sign of dullness, or not enough coolant. "DartByU" has it rite though "ISO 9000" would have made it near impossible to send those head out the door.

 

There were actually some additional burrs and razor sharp edges on the top of the heads near the valve springs, meriting a complete teardown.

I'm not a professional photographer, so I had to take about 10 pictures before me and my buddy figured out how to photograph the burrs effectively (light shining through the back, "shadowing" the burrs).
Then the battery on my cameral died!

I had initially suggested taping off all other parts of the head and de-burring them without disassembly, but that was before I saw the burrs and sharp edges up near the springs.

My buddy has already spent a lot of time and money on the motor, aside from the heads, so we will be tearing them down to avoid any nail biting later down the road.

Thanks,
S-D

 

Your right it might of been a dull cutter. But we just got a set of 190 afr's an they had problems fitting to the head pin on deck. The hole was to small. And the holes for the brackets had to oblonged a little to get the power steering bracket and supercharger brackets to fit. To me it looks like afr is following the same path as SLP their runners went down hill after they built a name fer themselves.

As goes I guess supply and demand comes before quality....

Sammy

 

I agree. With most places, even where I work, as long as the money rolls in, quality is looked at second. We once had a plaque that said "Why is there never enough time to do it right, but there is always time to do it over." Our warranty costs are always way over what the corporation wants. Thats b/c our quality is being pushed aside in favor of quantity. Is it just me, or does it seem there is more of a quality control over parts, or services provided by no-name, small companies, or even individuals who make products, then there is with mass produces items by big name places? Maybe its just me.

 

"DartByU" has it rite though "ISO 9000" would have made it near impossible to send those head out the door. [/B][/QUOTE]

If AFR is ISO 9000 compliant, they should have a signed off service order that would track the machining run, giving them the opportunity to correct the defect.

 

I originally started this thread just to make sure that anyone receiving AFR heads checked them out for burrs prior to installation so they wouldn't damage their engine.

Reviewing the posts in this thread made me wonder, "How would AFR respond to a thread like this?".

I e-mailed AFR's sales dept, giving them a link to this thread and necessary background. I soon received a response from them and now I know how AFR would respond to a post like this.

After reading AFRs response, I now know that AFR is not just some company selling high performance products. AFR is a high performance company selling high performance products.

The AFR e-mail reply follows:



Hi Will,

Thank you for the constructive criticism of AFR’s lack of quality control on de-burring heads. This occasionally, over our 30 year history, has been an Achilles heals in the past and now rears its ugly head again. As pointed out by a couple of the threads, this is caused by dull tools that an operator should notice. It also should have been noticed by our de-burr department in the wash room and by the assembler. Lastly, every single head that goes out the door is given a final inspection by a dedicated person in quality control before the heads are put into a box. Unfortunately even with all these check and balances in place by management it is still possible for employees to drop the ball. Since this e mail came to my attention (as does every customer complaint) a meeting was organized involving eleven production and quality control members to bring to there collective attention the seriousness of not de-burring heads properly. They were shown the pictures and read some of the threads to help them further understand the importance of quality.



AFR has a standard line that all our sales tech are heavily trained to use; if you are not happy with the product for any reason send them back to AFR for evaluation. If there is a problem AFR will pay UPS ground freight both ways and warranty the problem at no charge. If this customer called us I am very confident he was told this, not that we would only send him valve seals, we have much higher standards of customer service than that.



I felt it necessary to address some of the unnecessary comments made in reference to AFR. Judgment remarks about now that we have built our reputation we care more about shipping heads out the door than quality are uncalled for. Replies like this only start the chat room wildfires we are all too familiar with and could not be further from the truth. We pride ourselves on quality control and customer service and this is more of an isolate incident than a normal occurrence. As was mentioned problems happen, how businesses handle problems is what separates superior business from average ones. I think the reputation we have built speaks for itself, and I personally welcome any past or present customer with an issue to call me at 818 890 0616 ext.106.

Will, if you don’t mind, would you please post this reply for us.



Thank you,



Rick Sperling

President AFR

 

Impressive.

That is what you like to see. I guess i feel a 'little' better about my wait now. My 195's are supposed to ship on 9/10.

Thanks for posting that.

-Schultzy

 

that is exactly the kind of quality response I would expect from a quality company like AFR. Any company regardless of product and quality control will ALWAYS have something slip by. I would be interested to hear if any other person has had a quality control issue? if there are Im sure it is miniscule compared to the #'s of people here that are using AFR heads. Considering AFR's policy of satisfaction guaranteed Im surprised you didnt contact them first. this atleast give us all a place to double check on our own new sets of heads. even a spell checker isnt prefect...

 

Little update on mine... No heads yet If the shipping date of 8/29/03 was held to, they should have been here today. They're located in CA and so am I so it's not like I'm across country. My guess is they took last Friday off for a 4 day weekend hehe. Also emailed them earlier today for a tracking number, nothing back yet.

 

I was looking at a set of dodge performance parts heads a friend had and they had the same exact burrs

 

Truth is as a machinist myself those kind of burrs are pretty normal anytime your milling or drilling, and usually they are not a problem unless they are loosely attached, then they may fall off in service, and usually if it's a dull cutter causing it they will be very firmly attached and most likely will never come off in service, but it's just good machining practice to remove them.

 

These can easily be picked off with a finger nail.
Anywho, my buddy dismantled them and de-burred them, so that is done and over with. Now for re-assembly and installation.
S-D

 

Another update on my order... got a call today saying one of the castings for my order didn't pass their quality control so they've gotta make another one Wont ship out till the end of this month

 

I wonder if this post has anything to do with them rejecting your head? They don't need anymore of these threads

 

hmm interesting WWBD? (what would budda do)

 

Not sure hehe I was on hold when writing that post and decided not to be on hold any longer. Wanted to talk to the guy who called but he was on another call for a while. I might try calling them tomorrow just to see if there's any more details about what happend. At any rate, they're making another head to match up with the good one. Just wish it was shipping a little sooner than "around the end of September". Oh well, this project has been going on for over a year so a couple more weeks isn't that big.

 

Sorry to hear about your delays. I ordered my 195's on June 27th. They finally shipped this week. The tech apologized for the delay but said that they didn't want to send out a bad product.

Hopefully I'll be back on the road in a few weeks.

-Schultzy

 

What happend with yours? Think I ordered mine up the first week of July.

 

I talked to Rick he said "I'll show that little #$^%&* smart @$$.."

 

Well when I ordered they said it would be 5 weeks and then 1 week for shipping. I called at the 6 week mark and they said that they had had some slowdowns on the floor but said they should ship by the end of August. Called at the end of August and he said that they should be on the shipping list but they weren't- he would check with the foreman. Called back with a Sept 10 ship date. I called last Friday (12th) and he said they had shipped. I believe them but they are not here yet : waits :

So they never said exactly. I mentioned that I had heard about QC probs on several internet boards and he made the comment above. Never really confirmed anything. The guy was always professional though.

-Schultzy

 

Hey Schultzy-
What comment above? Just wondering.......

Also- can always ask for a UPS or FedEx tracking number. I usually do just so that I know what day the package will be sitting on the doorstep so I can go directly home after work or during luch to get it off the porch.
Just what you need- some homeless dude out collecting empty soda cans for aluminum to stumble across the heads sitting on your porch! "By gar, I bet I can get $25 for these babies down at the recycling center!"........

Hope they show up soon in good shape-
S-D

 

lmao - thanks for the happy thought

The 'comment above' was in reference to my previous post. Specifically, he stated that they did not want to ship out parts that then would have to be returned. Sorry about the confusion - I was being a lazy typist.

If they are not at my place when I get home I will call them again and ask for a tracking number.

-Schultzy

 

well looky what showed up...






they look pretty good to me.

good luck with your project.

-Schultzy

 

lookies like mines

 

yummy

 

I want mine

 

I guess I need to check mine out when they get back from the shop... I ordered some 210 RR last year... Their at the shop right now getting mill'd down to 64cc and having new Comp Cam springs put in them.

 

Just wanted to post a link to EvilCartmans thread, indicating his AFRs arrived in great shape.
https://www.thirdgen.org/techbb2/sho...78#post1545078

Also wanting to keep this thread alive for postings concerning the condition of AFR heads when they arrive- good bad or otherwise.

Thanks all for your inputs-
S-D

 

Ordered my AFR heads last Dec 2002. AFR said it would take 6 weeks till delivery. 6 weeks later I had the heads sitting on my door step! Right on time. They went straight from the box to the engine, then to the engine dyno. Made ove 450 lbs of torq and over 500 hp on a 355 NA on 91 octane pump gas and no nitrous. Very impressive for right out of the box.:hail: :hail: :hail: