heh guys,
So after tearing down the mighty 4.0 to the Valley on two separate occasions post head ob, i'm still getting a p1316, a persistent misfire and a leak at the rear of the intake into the Valley.

The only things not replaced and checked that are left are the possibility of a bad mating surface on one or both of the rebuilt heads and/or a bad surface on the intake.

So screw it, these heads have 205k miles on them anyway. I think i'm going to tear them off and rebuild everything while the muscle memory is still there.

So, where are people buying their heads from ? I see that Odesssa cylinder head sells refurbished heads on ebay and AB sells new ones for 1500 a side. Any recommendations ?

 

Will Tillery used to sell kits ready to go heads and associated bits, think he still does

 

that’s a good call!

Will has a low mileage gems for sale I was also considering dropping into the truck so either way looks like I’m calling him in the am

 

I bought a HG kit from Will for my D1 nearly a year ago and it came with two refurbished heads. Made the process so much easier and at a reasonable price. Been 15k miles since the HG job and I have had zero issues. If you're doing the job, call Will and make your life easier.

 

Having a set of heads ready to go makes the job a one day affair. Saves a lot of time.

 

So did you do the head gaskets but not have the current heads checked/surfaced?

Have you checked the block surface?

 

Just logging back in to update and saw your question.

I did have the heads machined as part of their rebuild. However, heads do have a finite number of times that they can be machined and I’m feeling particularly unconfident about the quality of the work.

I did check the block before deciding to reuse it. All good there. My initial post talks about the mating surface between head and intake, as the leak was on top of the valley gasket.

The 3rd time I redid the engine from the Valley up was the charm. A straight edge on the intake showed that the passenger side surface was bowed. I found that by not following the rave torque sequence but by smearing rtv thinly around where the water ports contact the intake, then torquing those down, and then torquing down the exhaust port bolts, that I was able to get a leak free top end.

I’m not sure if Will Tillery has something going on at the moment but it has been hard to get hold of him. In the end he didn’t have an engine or a set of heads to sell. The silver lining of course was that it provided enough motivation for me to fix what I had.

On another note, I also fixed the misfire. I suspected a clogged open injector after swapping coil packs, wires and seeing that cylinder 3 plug looked untouched whereas the others were fouled. I upgraded to the 19lb Bosch gen 3 injectors and the thing runs really well now.

It’s been an adventure. According to the previous owner, this car hadn’t run in over 7 years! I should probably get around to a build thread...