Bought this ported and polished bare B16 head from a guy on craigslist. I took it to DNR and they said it was scrap metal, But I was thinking to take it to a machine shop and seeing if there was anything they could do about it. Well I decided to post this up anyway, any machinists on here wanna chime in?

 

iPhone pics ftw.

 

Take it to a machine shop, it'll be at their discretion. I'd remove the valve guides and studs, then recycle it.

 

looks like a really nice boat anchor, but I am no machinist

 

You should see the ports on this thing tho, they are NICE! and hey, for $100, I couldnt pass it up. But I love close to a pretty reputable machine shop called Al Hubbard. So I'm gonna take it there asap.

 

A good machinist could line hone it but there could be other problems with it. Is it straight? Why did it wipe out the cam bearing surfaces in the first place. It may be more cost effective to replace it.

Was the head flow tested to prove that it flows well or does it just 'look nice'. Those are two completely different things.

 

the shop could easily clean out those bores but then they will be oversized and i've never seen different size cam bearings or anything so you would be out of luck unless you could find cams that would fit.
my guess is some of those scratches are .020-.030 deep do you know what happened to the head, oil starvation?

 

If done properly, they would end up the same size as original. To do this they cut a few thousandths off the caps which closes up the bore. Then they line hone or bore it back to the original size. This brings the centerline of the cam closer to the block which slightly retards cam timing which would need to be compensated for with adjustable cam gears. I don't think any of those scratches are .020" - .030" deep but they are pretty screwed up and the cost of line honing/boring it would probably not be worth it.

 

good post, I was thinking the same thing about line boring, but then i couldnt think of a way to do that without making the bore way oversize. cut the bottom of the caps, thanks for the answer. That was bothering me lol.

 

Yes, its the same thing they do when line honing/boring main caps or when reconditioning the big end of the connecting rod.

 

Those gouges look deep. I don't think a hone is going to fix it. Too bad no one makes bearing inserts.

 

In the old days when people actually repaired things, they would just bore the head oversize and hard-chrome the bearing surfaces of the cam to make them bigger. You can still find people who will do this but it will cost you more than the head is worth.

 

I dont know the story behind this head, but I think after some calling around and doing some research, that I will just use it as a paper weight and bite my tounge for the money I paid for it. Life's all about learning from your mistakes I guess.

...Unless someone wants it...

 

I could see pressing interference fit sleeves over the cam journals and then line boring oversize. I wonder if anyone has done this.