I asked him to put some type of unique marking on them.
I trust Chico and he has great reviews but these aren't your "run of the mill" heads and I wanted to be sure that they are what arrives on my engine. Problem is, that if there were an unscrupulous individual - it would be pretty easy to replicate any green paint and my initials... So, Len suggested using paint that would change color if we hit it with a hot air gun.
When I set out for a new engine, I found "off the shelf" engines for around $2500, everyone on TS suggested some upgrades to cam, gear, lifters, and the heads - even if I am staying within a "stock" grade engine. So, after all is said and done the engine comes out closer to about $4300 before I put on the new FI harness, powdercoating, R/R etc.
In 2007 we stopped servicing used VW T4 bus heads. By that time around half of the castings we saw had severe cracks down in the exhaust ports and/or other evidence of heat related damage. It no longer made sense to put large amounts of time into servicing them when we can buy new, better castings.
As replacements we offer our Blueprint Special’s.
We start with a pair of new AMC 2.0 heads, strip the sub-par valves, seats, guides, springs, and retainers and toss them in the scrap barrel.
The Blueprint Specials are machined to accept new high temp, super durable valve seats that are fitted tight with the proper interference fit. The tungsten carbide exhaust seat material we use is wear rated up to 1800*F.
They’re built with new quality parts proven to be durable and reliable. The valve guides we use are silicon/manganese bronze and are extremely wear resistant.
The valves are tough aftermarket stock 2.0 size (39mm x 33mm) O.E. replacements.
The heads are machined and built with pride to factory specifications. Valve stem ht’s are set to +or- .005” for consistent valve train geometry.
Combustion chamber volumes are stock at ~49.5cc’s.
These heads come equipped with a .8mm raised step in the cylinder registers. This step simulates the O.E. head gaskets thickness and allows them to be deleted per VW instructions without installing spacers under the jugs to restore the unswept volume and deck height lost with the deleted gaskets. This raised step counts as deck ht and is added to the deck ht in the cylinders for determining the total deck.
so bright and shiny!!
