telly444

I was curious how many miles your heads have on them? style of driving, mods, and if you have had another wiggle test done to see if they are still holding up. also if you have had any problems or issues with the heads.

Rupert pupkin

1500 miles. Very spirited hwy driving. Just came back from a cruise and was doing a couple 7k pulls a little while ago. No issues now (knock on wood)

Cam/heads/exhaust.. The basic good sh** mods.

telly444

cam specs?

z76232

Just had the wiggle test done. All were in spec. 06 with 16k miles. A couple close but no big deal. I'll get it done at 30k miles again and see what's up. As much as I drive it will be 8 years before I get there.

telly444

16k and were close already. yikes. maybe my expectations are to high but really I don't want to deal with my heads again for a long long time. any feedback on American Hertiage head job?

Unreal

He has stock heads.

'06 Quicksilver Z06

The guy who replied to you, z76232, has stock heads.

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c6-z...head-work.html

ctsv510

Yeah, not sure why he posted that. Hopefully he edits it so it doesn't confuse anyone else.

I have about 3000 miles on my WCCH heads so far since having them done 6 months ago. With about 6000 miles per year of driving I probably won't wiggle test them until for about 3 years or 20k miles.

ctsv510

Only feedback on AH is that their customer service is top notch and everyone is very happy with their experience. They haven't been around here offering their LS7 head work long enough for any members to have any kind of real mileage on any particular package and subsequently no reports of long term guide clearance measurements.

I expect more WCCH heads with greater than 20k miles to start being checked in the next year or so, and then it will realistically probably be another two at least before we have people checking their AH heads. I don't believe AH has reported any guide clearance measurements from their heads with miles on them, but like WCCH I don't believe they've had a customer that has experience a failure.

'06 Quicksilver Z06

The question is sort of a loaded question in that many Katech done cars technically have "WCCH done Heads" on them. With bronze guides, albeit stock or titanium exhaust valves.

But I think that the original poster is trying to get a feel for bronze guide durability. If that is the case, well then, here is what was said earlier:

If one really wants to know the answer, well then a start would be to check to see the highest mileage Katech Stage 2 cars in here to see what their guide wear measurements are using bronze valve guides.

Cars modded like what the original poster says that has planned, typically do not get a lot of miles put on them, and so it will be hard for him to find high mileage examples of what he is looking for.

FWIW Chad posted up this video on a set of heads from the shop the original poster inquired about, with 12K miles on them.

rockinSeat

For all that has been posted about factory vs. SS exhaust valves, I'm surprised we don't debate how the longer guide would help very often. For all we know, it alone could be the fix. (And the head job that goes with it.).

Good thread, I'm interested in how these hold up with mileage too. I can't extend my warranty again...

Rupert pupkin

233/245.

UsernameProtected

I'm looking for similar information the OP is asking. I'm a "do it once, do it right"person, and my expectation is to not have an issue for 100,000 miles after I've fixed the heads. My Z06 will not be raced, and will probably see 20,000-40,000 highway miles per year. I don't see myself performing "wiggle tests" every three months.

I've had my out-of-warranty Z06 for four days, and I'm ready to move forward, but I haven't found a clear path yet. Everyone who's "fixed" the problem argues for the solution they chose (normal human behavior), some who've never done anything argue there's no significant problem, and some report their LS7 dropped a valve while idling at a stoplight.

I love my Z06 now...I just want to ensure I love it 80,000 miles from now.

EZ SPEED

I have 6100 miles on my WCCH that Vengenace Racing installed for me.

'06 Quicksilver Z06

Buy a GMPP and keep it stock if those are options for you..

Mark2009

If you can't see yourself performing one at least every year at that kind of annual mileage, I'd suggest another vehicle (one without an LS7).

Mark2009

Unless they've had the guide clearance checked then those reports will be meaningless. A forum member had 88K miles on his stock heads, no apparent problems, but when he checked the clearance they were way out of spec.

"Running fine", "sounds good", "pulls good", "revs fine", "no apparent problems", without any measurements or inspection none of it means anything.

Mark2009

Now a very interesting experiment would be for someone that puts a lot of miles on their car to have one head rebuilt with bronze guides, the other head with PM guides, then check them via wiggle test after, say, every 15K miles.

Tarostar

I'd be happy to conduct this experiment on mine if you guys pool together the money for the heads and cover a new engine if needed. For science!

American Heritage

The 24hr race engine you keep speaking of is/was running a shaft mount roller rocker system (no real side loading of the valve). In this application Bronze is great. Bronze is not the best choice of valve guide material with a non roller tip rocker that causes lots of valve side loading.

The aftermarket bronze guide that the majority of rebuilders use may very well indeed be better than the factory's OEM PM guide. We recently sent a bunch of guides out to an independent facility to be tested. The Bronze guide was HRC25 (c scale,,,, this is in reference to how hard the metal is... lower number softer metal, higher number harder metal). We sent in a used oem gm ls7 guide that we knocked out of a head, it was HRC10 (c scale)... so in this case yes a bronze guide would be better than gm's oem pm guide. We also had our AHP aftermarket Hardened PM guided tested and it tested HRC40 (c scale). This would mean our hardened PM guide is harder than the factory's PM guide and harder than the aftermarkets bronze guide.
The point being the harder the guide the more likely it is to resist valve side loading. In other words the harder the guide the less the guide will wear when exposed to high levels of valve side loading.
Theoretically a harder guide should wear less all around than a softer guide.

So application makes all the difference. Bronze with shaft mount roller rockers = good. Bronze with stock non roller tipped rockers = not the best material for the application.