The shady parts were the heads.
For thos that dont know, the heads are the part of the motor where hte intake and exhaust valves and spark plugs are. The block is where the pistons and cylinder bores are. The heads are what lets air into the bores and lets them out later. Te heads are a very, very, very important part of it, and when it comes to high performance motors, your heads are probably the most important part of a good motor. An engine is a sort of air pump. THe more air that can flow into the motor when it's running the more power it can make.
The intake chutes in teh heads and the exhaust chutes where the exhaust leaves the piston and starts to make its way towards the tailpipe both determine airflow, and the better they flow the more power you will make. The better the flow the better the motor will be able to take advantage of its displacement. This is why you have 2 liter hondas making 300 horsepower and 1970s big block V8s making 150 hp. It's not about displacement, it's about how well air flows through the motor.
THese heads I have are a very, very desirable kind because of their flow characteristics. More than that, they had a lot of work done on them that made them even more desirable. One of those was the heads were ported on the exhaust side. THe exhaust chutes in the heads had been basically bored out to be a larger size for better flow. Doing that is a common thing among hot-rodder circles but you have ot be careful when you do that because you can go all the way through hte metal casing and end up in what's called the water jacket. This is where the coolant in your engine is.
My heads had been ported until they broke through the water jacket on apparently hte majority of the ports, if not all of them. As a stop-gap attempt tehy apparently tried to weld the holes back up and did a good job smoothing out their repairs, but they probably knew the repairs wouldn't work. Their welds leaked. So what you have is water (Coolant) getting into the exhaust ports and thus mayhem ensues.
What sucks for me is that I paid for very nice, desirable heads, I got pretty rippedo ff.
For those of you who are still reading, my technical jargon has perhaps intrigued you?
These are what they look like:
That's from the top/outside. The top part with the springs is covered by valvecovers.
This is what they look like on the bottom:
Those valves are right over hte cylinder bores. The big valves are where the air/fuel mixture enters the chamber, and the small valve is where it leaves. On the other side of the valve is the "port".
So that should give you guys an idea of what cylinder heads are if you dont already know. ANd maybe give you a sense of how big of a deal it is that i got a bad set. They're just as much a foundation of the motor as the engine block is.
ANyway, whatever they patched up the holes with doesnt rust like the rest of the iron, so it makes the botched repairs VERY obvious.
You can see the valves in those pictures also, but from above/behind them.
To give you a better idea of what/where the heads are, this picture should work pretty well:
The two things poking up on either side that say "AFR" on them are the heads. The thing below that they're mounted to is the block. AFR is a brand called Air Flow Research... VERY nice parts...
I know some of you guys like it when I get technical, and i'm personally someone who loves to learn technical things so I'd eat stuff like this up, so I hope you guys enjoy it.
But the particular heads I have are a very desirable style, so getting another set will set me back a lot of money again.
