most of you already know CC Cylinderheads Steve is no longer doing head work.

it has recently been brought to my attention by a few of steves customers (i wont say who) his work was not what he claimed it to be and of poor quality. flow numbers were false and port designs were not correct and different from what he promised the customer.

it was not found out until these customers went elsewhere to have these heads redone or freshened up now that steve is gone and the subpar work was found. this is not a case of another company trying to discredit steve or steal his work. this was more than one customer and more than one company who found these results.

some cases were much lower flow numbers and poor port design. others were cases of exhaust ports not being reshaped as promised but instead barely grinded on as if to just make them look "ported".

these heads were redone by these other companies and the customers have gained flow, made much better power and gone quicker @ the track. some cases an astonishing amount of power and et were gained. some customers have the heads back w/ much better work and flow #s but havent made it to the track yet to see true results.

i wont say who these customers are or which companies know about this, if these people want to chime in they are welcome but i dont blame them a bit for wanting to stay out of it, nobody likes to bash people, especially well known people.

im posting this info because if i were spending my time and money trying to go fast, i would want to know if something could be holding me back so i could fix it and go as fast as possible.

btw, please dont pm me, again i not wont give names.

 

Sadly I am one them

 

My CC head, had a sever issue sucking oil past the valve stems....... Why you ask? The roof was ported so high that the head cracked around the stems. Steve was man enough to refund me the price to purchase another stock head...... which was much much less than what I paid him in labor alone. 2nd junk head from the 2nd "reputable" head porter.

I will NEVER have another head ported.

 

So was I

 

At the begining of last year, I had Steve do some headwork for me. I told Steve what I was looking for in flow characteristics and he said that would be not a problem to do. I sent the head and paid in full. During this transaction period, Steve was coordial and kept the communication good. A reasonable time later I recieved my head and took it to a local machine shop to have flow tested. My intention was to validate Steve's results against his own expectations and my previous testing on other heads. I told Steve that my concern was that "claimed numbers" were never lived up to. In this case, neither was this cylinder head. It flowed much less than Steve told me it would. I contacted him and he told me to put it on the car and run it. My dyno results were 25 whp lower than previously tested, so I knew something was wrong. I pulled the head and went back to retest the head at the flow bench. This second test, was done just to confirm my first results to Steve, before sending it back. At the machine shop, I discovered that the valve fit the guides very sloppy. I brought this to Steve's attention and he had me send the head back for his own inspection. He found the guides to be acceptable from his perspective (The valves moved .015" in any direction) I personally have never had a valve to guide clearance to be so sloppy, but he said it was acceptable. Steve also said that he would make some changes to my head that would help flow... the wait began. SO FAR, Steve's customer service has been acceptable, but it ended very quick. Months passed by and there was very little contact. Steve was reluctant to respond to any of my communication attempts. I was forced to contact my attorney. Fortunately for myself, Sammy (Flatbush projects) helped put some additional pressure on Steve to get my head sent back to me. I recieved my head and had it flow tested... there are improvements, but the guide issue still remains.

Overall, Steve's lack of communication really put me at odds with him, resulting in my previous attempts to contact him here on HT. I feel that I have been left hanging and it is up to me to get what I already paid for, fixed. My attorney will be in contact in the next week. I am looking for a refund.

 

Steve was helpful to me, nah not really if I think about it, he wouldn't tell me any secrets to porting heads lol, now I know that he didn't have any! lol

 

were your heads , hand or cnc ported?

 

this interesting to me since I had high flow numbers. Now I am going to take it to another place and see if the information I was given was correct or not. Either way it sucks to see good people getting ripped. I hope I didnt get ripped off that bad

 

Sad thing was we were friends... And I paid to have a head repaired and I nothing and now I'm out a hg and money.. He did give me my parts back

 

same story with my b16a head...I only trust oem casting with a valve job now...

 

That is insane. Ive always heard such great things about Steve. I even considered sending my head off to him. Im glad this was discovered.

 

Interesting...

 

added my input above.

 

This business overtime changes people, probably why he left. He was a great guy, someone i respected.

Hopefully his new life will treat him well, and I wish him the best. Its very sad to hear this though, majority of his work was good, it is really a shame that his last few months, or a year was his worst put out work.

 

this kills me inside knowing this ... i now wonder if my head that i had done from him is gonna cause me a issue ... its to late in my build to turn around now ... im to far deep and pockets are to empty to redo everything ... i hope for the best for my head

 

I am in the EXACT same boat as you man^^. I'm ****in nervous as hell now. ****.

 

Check for epoxy under the spring seats. This was his method of repair for the cracked valve guide bosses.

 

i pm him to do my turbo head...but i didnt like his attitude so i went with RLZ tru NAH2B...no regrets....i had both my rlz heads done in less than 3 weeks..and had a good experience....

this is the reason my next car isnt gonna be a honda anymore...to many shady people trying to take your hard earn money...

also wasnt the cnc port he offerd done by RLZ and he just put his name on it?

 

Unfortunately I was one of those also. Wasn't until I sent out the head that steve did for me to another company that I found out the work was sub-par. I originally only wanted to replace and repair some bent valves but was told the head needed a lot more work than that. Poorly done valve job and mis-shaped and pitted ports among other things.

Sadly I never had the head flowed originally or currently to tell the difference, but I made a lot more power now than I ever did with the head previously.

At least i know I wasn't the only one

 

Such a shame. He was very helpful when he did my heads. That was 3 years ago though.

 

some of these problem heads were done years ago

it wasnt just his recent work that went downhill, his porting skills were never there from the beginning.

his customer service is what went downhill at the end

 

yes rlz did the cnc ports for steve. steve claimed he used his own design for those cnc ports, that i am not certain of.


incase anyone is wondering, i am nolonger working with or handling sales and customer service for Brad @ RLZ. after i parted out my car last year we slowly lost touch w/ eachother. customers still pm me and i simply forward them to Brads contact info @ RLZ. just wanted to put that info out there for anyone thinking i may have started this thread to gain customers.

 

True. - Thanks for the heads up Randy, and sorry to hear that you're not helping RLZ anymore.


Hopefully everyone that is getting their heads redone , gets the work they want.

 

at least you know you will make more power w/ a better head

i been telling you should be close to 300whp, a few tweaks will get you where you should be. rework the head, change out that 5 layer headgasket lol, and drop in the cams. you will be happy buddy!

 

I was going to send a head to him a few years back. Until a read a few of his posts and saw that he wasn't being all that helpful to people. A few of his answers threw up a red flag and made me think that he might not know exactly what he was doing. I questioned him once and got the most childish reaction ever. At that time he was the man on this forum so everyone jumped in on his side and bashed me and my question. I went elsewhere with my question and it was validated. I'm glad I questioned him and I didn't sent him anything.

Sorry to hear that his smoke and mirrors worked on so many people. It's a shame!