Head work or no?
 

I'm taking my block to the machine shop to get worked on and the question is if I should get any work done to the head or not? The shop told me it's $270 to clean, pressure test, shave, recut the valves, and install new valve stem seals.

Do I even need any work done to the head? My car didn't smoke and had no issues with the head that I was aware of. Ive read alot of people leave the head and bolt it right back on.

Thoughts?

What is the engine gonna be used for? How many miles?

My engine was healthy before I decided to take it out and rebuilt it. Took it to the machine shop and they told me the head was slightly warped and just met their criteria of "reusable"
Got it shaved and etc. Did I have to? Maybe not. Did I regret doing it? Nope.

Idk what your build is exactly, but if you're investing 3k+ into your engine, what is a mere $270 for a refurbished head?

Do it now rather then putting it back together, just to pull apart again later down the road.

My build is for boost. 84mm 8.8 pistons, rods, be pump, arp studs, acl bearings. The engine had 146k miles when I pulled it and it ran great. Everything looked really good when tearing the engine apart too.

I didn't think the head could be warped if it ran great before, but if that's a possibility then maybe i should go ahead and pay it. Just feeling the money stress as I am already over $2500 in.

Did you ever overheat? My coolant temps hit 245* once. Soooo that could of probably been why my head was slightly warped.

But even then, with everything apart, everything looked in good condition. So really, you won't know till the machine shop does their measurements.

If you don't send your head, the least you could do is replace the valve stem seals tho. Other than that, I'd just send it.

What are your power goals? What head are you using? If it's an NA head I'd leave it alone and keep an eye out for a NB head if you need more power. If its already an NB head and you're shooting for enough power to break all the things then I'd go ahead and do the head work.

I agree with pdexta.
Only do 99 up heads...
The earlier ones have lower intake ports, worse port flow, and HLAs

Now, I see far more leakage off of valve sealing than ring sealing.
I'm far more likely to "do" a head and leave the short block alone.

I cannot imagine ripping it all down and not at least hand lapping valves, new VS seals, milling gasket surface, and clean the head up...
Normally on a "forged" bottom end I will also do port profiling, intake and exhaust manifold matching, Intake clean up, etc...

If I was stuck with a HLA head I'd hand lap, replace VS seals and have it milled and...
Start saving up for a 99+ head.

That is a good price for the work, and getting the valves redone is going to be an advantage for your rebuild. Just do it; not a lot pf point in going half way at this stage.

That is a very fair price these days. Im in Savannah as well. Are you using Motor parts company on bay street? There used to be a place on highway 17 called Sauls cylinder heads who was very cheap for head work, but unfortunately out of business now. Guess he was a little too cheap.

Yeah ill go ahead and get the head work done. Im actually using B&T in Beaufort. I called Motor parts co but they were the most expensive shop I talked to. With the head work and all the bottom end stuff it will be $600 at B&T

Have them de-shroud the valves and address any core shift. If you're gonna do the work, might as well.