heads

[rmilsap30]

anybody have any experience with clearwater heads? went to do head gasket and found cracks in heads from the intake valve towards the precup. 6 out of 8 cyl. had the cracks between the valves. two of them were pretty fair cracks. bought the heads, hope they are worth the $600 per pair shipped. I already have done a waterpump and fan upgrade so should not have any problems keeping cool

[a5150nut]

Robyn used Clearwater heads and had nothing but good to say about them.

Be sure to clean cooling stack while you have it all apart.

[Robyn]

I used a set on a 94 Burb a few years ago.

They were part of a complete overhaul on the engine at 230++ K miles

The fit and finish was good.

I yanked out a couple valves in each head to see what the seats looked like, and all seemed fine.

These are definitely made over seas.

CW says that the castings are made over seas and then machined in their shops.

??????????????

I have heard every conceivable combination of stories about these heads, but decided to try a set.

The engine ran great and with no issues.

When I sold the rig, the engine had 50 K plus since the overhaul and no problems.

The CW heads were $600 a pair at that time (to the door) with a call ticket to return my heads.

The story goes that CW scavenges the springs and valves etc from the old stuff, reworks the valves and uses the parts in the new castings.

Not a bad jump for a budget build.

The last 6.5 I did got AMG heads. These are about a grand per set.

I would not be at all scared of using a set of the CW heads again.

Good luck

Robyn

[More Power]

One factor in all this is that the GM heads have been around for 3+ decades. We know what we need to know about the GM heads. AMG heads have been around since the fall of 2001. Import heads are a fairly recent phenomenon, and will anyone know where those heads came from a decade from now?

[coxfmly]

I installed a set of CW heads @ 200K, I'm now pushing 240K with no issues....

[rmilsap30]

Well for $600 shipped and free return shipping on the cores they went together fine. Its running and no instant pressurized cooling system anymore. Hope they last.:)

[Robyn]

With the cost of getting used heads rebuilt, and then with little real guarantee that they will last, the CW heads are a fair bang for the buck.

If $$$ are not an issue the AMG heads are a good choice, as AMG is definitely good quality stuff.


Just an FYI
Frito Lay was using the CW heads on their chip delivery rigs for quite a while

The rebuilt stuff was not working out well, and they started buying the CW heads by the pallet load.

The word was that they were pleased with the quality and the overall cost savings as compared to either new or rebuilt.

The myriad tricks used to try and salvage a pair of cracked GM heads were a stop gap measure at the time prior to other choices being available.

The various tricks such as installing bronze sleeves in the passage between the valves to stop leaks worked, but the bottom line was simple, the heads were junk and the goal was to try and salvage them to save $$$

As far as the future goes, I am not sure it matters what heads are available, or where they come from.
Any good machinist can examine a pair of heads and tell if they are usable.

The pool of good used parts are fast becoming history, and therein lies the issue.

Getting a zero hour set of castings is worth something.


Glad you are up and running

Missy