[Technick]

I took digital pic's but don't think that they would show anything usefull in this format. So here is the story: 1st off a disclaimer to keep from getting sued for lible: this is my "opinion" of what happened, your results may vary! I took every effort to resolve this with Power Heads and was rebuffed at every attempt. I purchased a set of E7OE 5.0 cylinder heads from Power Heads to install on a '70 Mustang. At the same time I installed a Edelbrock Perfrormer RPM cam kit, Ford Motorsport 1.7 roller rocker arms, Edelbrock double roller timming chain and gear set along with JBA headers and new 2 1/2" dual exhaust. The car already had a Edelbrock dual 4 bbl intake with 2 Edelbrock 500 cfm carbs, along with a MSD distributor. As with ANY new hyd. flat tappet camshaft you must pre-lube the cam and when the engine is started you must take it to at least 2,000 rpm's for the first 15-20 min. so as to break in the cam as it is lubed only by "splash" on the cam lobes. So after pre-lubing the engine with a drill to ensure that the engine had oil pressure, I started the engine and took it to 2,500 rpm's for the cam break-in proceedure. I have installed hundrededs of cams this way. Not ever a problem. Anyway 5 min. into the break-in proccedure the engine starts running rough, in the first 5 min. we had set the ignition timming, verified oil pressure with a mechanical gauge, watched the coolant temp, looked for leaks ect. you know all the stuff that you should do. As the engine started running rough I noticed that the valve train was getting a little noisy, another min. goes by and the engine runs even worse and the valve train makes even more noise. So I shut it off thinking that maybe a couple of the rocker arms have backed off. After pulling the valve covers off I found that 4 or 5 of the rockers are complely loose. BUT not from having backed off! The valves were stuck in the guides and the pistons had bent the valves as a result. So off come the heads and back to Power heads they go after a conversation with them. 6 WEEKS later, 6 WEEKS!!!!!!! I get another set of heads from them. Not wanting to take any chances I take the heads to a VERY repuatable machine shop. I mean these guys do nothing but race engines 90% of the time. Mostly NASCAR Winston West engines. Saw one of their 351W race engines on the dyno. 9.5:1 compression, 355 cid, 750cfm carb. 714 H.P. @ 8,400 rpm!!!!!!!!!!!!! These guys know how to build an engine! Yea it cost $44,000.00! Anyway they look at the heads and show me that they are just CRAP!!!! ALL of the intake valve guides had been installed off center so that the valve was not in-line or center as they should be. SO when the roller rocker arm is installed the roller tip is touching only on the edge of the roller, not across the face as it should. Next ALL of the valve springs were weak. I could colapse the valve spring between my hands. I mean these things should have had at least 90 psi closed pressure if not up to 120 psi, these things tested out at 45-60 psi closed! ("closed"means installed height) In other words the valves would have "floated" at about 4,000 rpm! 3rd, when Power Heads did the valve grind they ground thru the factory flame hardened seat in order to fit in a 1.6 exhaust valve. Now the exhaust seat consisted of just good old cast iron! It would last maybe 10,000 miles IF you are lucky. Should have had a Hardened seat installed instead. 4th, the valves they used were "stainless" valves alright! Except the stems were NOT chrome faced! I found out that Ford used this type of valve back in the early 1960's but had abandoned it because of wear problems. The up side for Power heads is that the valves are cheap to buy, about $3.00 each! So I call up Power Heads with my "findings" and they tell me that since "someone other than Power Heads has touched them (as in assemble/disssasemble) they WILL NOT WARRENTY them!!!!!!!! Even though NO WORK WAS DONE TO THEM!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They refused to let me ship them back unless I sent them another $700 first. They claimed that the machine shop was incompetent and did not know what they were doing. Of course this was a suprise to the machine shop as they had been doing quality work and race engines for over 20 years!
I will say this about Power Heads, the CNC work in the ports is GREAT! Even the machine shop said so, especially if used on a street car. So If y ou MUST have Power heads, see if you can buy the heads bare and get just the CNC port work done and then pay your local machinest to get them set up rignt!
This is the "highlights" of the whole afair.
Enough said!