0Tony Mamo @ AFR

Guys,

It has come to our attention that some time ago we received a batch of valves from our supplier (8 mm LS1) that the tips were not hardened to the proper Rockwell scale. Over the course of time this will lead to the tip eroding ultimately creating lash (play) between the worn tips and the rocker arms. As this situation progress’s further, the audible ticking noise will get louder and the wear will accelerate faster from the pounding of the rocker arm on the valve tip. If left completely unchecked, it could cause a valve to drop (worst case scenario) but the clacking noise would be very audible if the damage had progressed that far and it’s extremely unlikely anyone would drive it that long without noticing. Take note that depending on how loud your exhaust is and how far the problem may have progressed, you may or may not hear it from the driver’s seat. I would encourage anyone who’s reading this and has purchased our heads to listen to the engine running with the hood open. Note also that some cams with more aggressive lobes (XER, LSK, etc.) will always have more valve train noise than a stock cam….what you are listening for is abnormally loud clacking and a noise that seems more isolated to possibly only one or a few bad valves.

The good news is we have shipped over 1000 sets of LS1’s in the last year or two and this problem currently represents approximately 1% of our sold and delivered units, however, till we get a better handle from our supplier on how many valves they may have sent us that way (which we are working on), we felt it best to be upfront with you guys in the event we can help prevent any serious engine damage by alerting you to a potential problem ahead of time. Understand that this letter isn’t meant to induce panic and hopefully you never experience any issues (needless to say it would have been far easier to bury our head in the sand in the hopes this is very isolated and goes away), but management felt it would be best handled by being pro-active and sharing the information with all of you who stepped up and bought our product (regardless of whether you may or may not have some issues now or down the road that need to be corrected). We are also aware that one of our competitors recently reported something similar regarding tip wear, but in our situation its not related to geometry and the few people that have had an issue had both stock and aftermarket roller rockers. These are simply coincidental and un-related occurrences.

In the event you are experiencing any issues please contact AFR directly…. note that in one case the damage took as long as 8000 miles to be pronounced enough for our customer to look into the abnormal tapping noises emitting from the valve train. A few happened much faster than that which IMO is more likely. Currently, we are handling each situation on a case by case basis and will continue to speak with our manufacturer (who also builds valves for OEM applications) to try and get a better idea of how much help they will be willing to provide.

As I learn more I will be passing it along to you….in the meantime I advise you give the valve train a quick listen and if you’ve got the time, tools, and ability, removing both valve covers to take a closer look at your valve stem tips certainly wouldn’t be a bad idea. A bad one will have an arc ground in it from the rocker wiping across it.

We hope this info helps some of you to avoid any potential problems….

Feel free to contact myself or anyone in the Sales/Technical Dept. by dialing (661)257-8124
Please leave a message in the event you can’t reach a live person and someone will get back to you shortly

Sincerely,
Tony Mamo
AFR Sales / R&D Mgr.

GUYS...PLEASE SCROLL TO POST#42 FOR AFR's RESOLUTION OF THIS ISSUE MORE CLEARLY SPELLED OUT.....THANKS, TONY

RWE 427

Could this be a issue that may effect me? I just purchased AFR heads on 21 Sept. 06 from AD performance in Sammamish,WA. Any possibility that these heads have the bad valves? I only have 300 miles on the heads as of now.

RonnieLS1

Could you post some pics of the bad valve with the arc in it?

SpeedyZ

Thanks for being up front about this! I'm sure most everyone will understand is it hard to tell when your suppliers is sending you crap and that you all is not the source of the problem. I don't think this will hurt your sales either, you make an awesome product. I'm very impressed with the set I purchased. But one question, for how long do you all plan to take care of these problems? I have had my head installed over a year and only have a half mile on the car since they are installed. At the rate I'm going it will take me a long time to get 8,000 miles.

Also, is both intake and exhaust valves affected?

7LitreC5

Tony,

Do you have a date range for the affected heads? I purchased my 205s in October or November of 2004. Should I be concerned?

Thanks,
Mark Forbes

Ikester

Or even a small sound clip of a defective valve stem.

PS- ive put 24,000 miles on my AFR heads (with many "redline shifts" ) and the car still runs like a champ.

0C_Williams@RPM

Rather than wait for an audible alert, it may be more prudent to pull your covers, remove the rocker shafts and inspect your valve tips.

And, what happens to the metal that has eroded from the tips....it ends up in the oil and hopefully filtered.


Charlie

0Tony Mamo @ AFR

Guys...

Dont have any dates or specific info as of yet (and not sure if I ever will)....the oldest head was about 15 months old so far but IMO it would probably come down to cycle time.

I would think if you have over 10K your easily in the clear and even more than 5K would probably put you on easy street.

Dont forget, as of now this is more of a customer service bulletin....over 1000 heads shipped in the last 12 months....less than 10 (currently) with problems....even if that number quadruples its still only 4% of what we shipped so please keep that in mind. Hopefully none of you guys have an issue but we felt it was better to be up front about it in the event it may help yuo to avoid serious engine problems. We were torn because we didnt want to alarm everyone over what we hope will stay more of a false alarm and a very isolated problem(s).....unfortunately the knowledge I am sharing just doesn't make that possible but we knew the right thing was to come foward so we did.

Guys....dont have any soundclips but will be posting pics sometime next week. This should help you so in the event you do take the time to look you will know exactly waht to look for....

Look for more info and updates some time next week....

Regards,
Tony

zeevette

If your valve tips are badly worn, they'll be pretty easy to tell. Here's an example....the one on the right. BTW, these are NOT AFR heads.

Wicked Weasel

FrankTank

I Had this issue with my AFR Heads, here is a picture



AFR did replace my valves on both heads. Tony, not sure if you remember me. I posted about this in C5 Tech back in July this year, and everyone chewed my a new a-hole and said it was valve geometry and my installer had screwed up.

I will be calling you to discuss this more in detail and what to do about the labor I had to pay to have my head pulled and reinstalled, and the other head that was not sent back, that had to be rebuilt by the installer.

Thanks for being upfront and posting this. To those of you who chewed me out and said I OWE AN APOLOGY

For those of you who are wondering if you have this issue, in my case, it showed up at about 1-1,500 miles.... and the ticking noise is pretty easy to hear, but like Tony said, depedning on your exhaust and how big your cam is, and how far along the problem is it may or not be very clear. I am no expert tech on engines, and it was clear as day when I heard it that something was not right...my cam is not that big though so it may have stood out more clear.

0Tony Mamo @ AFR

Hello Frank...

I remember clearly and your head was the first head we saw any valve tip issues but your head did also have serious geometry issues as well (the wipe pattern was clearly rolling off the valve stem tip). I personally took the time to try and duplicate that on one of my LS mock up blocks and couldnt with stock or aftermarket rockers. Anyway, while the strange geometry certainly couldnt have helped things, what you experienced regarding tip wear may have very well been one of the first examples of the situation I just notified everyone of.

Either way, feel free to contact me at AFR.

(661)257-8124 Ext. 109

Thanks,
Tony

FrankTank

Thanks Tony. Left you a message.

LeMansBlue04

Being one of those who thought you should apologize my opinion has not changed. You were pretty critical of AFR at the time even though they had made every effort to help you and it was AFR (not your tuner) who figured out what was wrong.

I can certainly understand your frustration though. A new engine, new parts and a failure after only 1500 miles. It would be easy to jump to conclusions.

I saw the pictures of your failed valve and a picture of one that was well worn but had not yet failed. The wear was clearly on the far edge of the valve stems and that indicates a geometry problem. Its one of the things we all have to be careful of when building an LSx with a new cam. More than one person has gotten it wrong.

I hope for your sake that your tuner has corrected that problem. It would be a shame if it occured again simply because your tuner would not admit their mistake.

WALLstAL

Posting for email notification!!

Purchased in Sept.04, not sure of the mileage but s/b around 5K, everything O.K. so far.

FrankTank

Fair enough, I agree with you to a point, and we'll just agree to disagree on the rest, but I am not going to get into going back and fourth again. Car is running fine now and I have not had any problems. I don't want to hijack this thread, rather let others post up regarding their heads, and Tony can reply to them.
Thanks

dads01dream

Tony,

Thanks for stepping forward about this issue. Just another indication how dedicated you folks are to your customers and products!!! Keep up the great work.

I'll be looking to build a motor soon (possible 402?) and my head of choice will come from AFR..... Not to go too far off topic, but do you think the 225's would be a good choice with about 12-14lbs. of boost?

Wish you the best in business!!

0Jeff @ TPE

I have had a pretty loud "Clacking" noise in my heads.
The AFR 225's are about 9 months old and have about 1300 miles on them. They will be being torn down next month and checked. I am running stock rockers and LESS than a .585 lift.

I will let you know next month.

VegasJen

thumbs up to the guys at AFR for stepping up and keeping the customer informed. that goes a long way in my book, and should i consider a set of heads in the future, you guys will be at the tome of my list.
i am curious to know though, would you share the country of origin for your valve supplier?

0Tony Mamo @ AFR

I would lay a wager that most, if not every, aftermarket performance cylinder head manufacturer does NOT check every valve tip for hardness. As a mass manufacturer of any product, you are forced to rely on the fact your supplier is doing there job and providing you with quality components. Charlie (C Williams)....I'm sure the electric motor company you dealt with bought parts and relied on those vendors QC for what ultimately became part of the electric motors your company built and put their name on. Our relationship with this supplier has been superb up until this incident and they have alway provided us with quality merchandise. No matter WHO you deal with, stuff happens from time to time, especially when dealing in mass produced quantities of parts, widgets, party supplies, you name it....the exposure is simply greater. We are currently working with them on figuring out how to resolve what ever the extent of this issue turns out to be (which now still seems very remote), but ultimately its how AFR handles their affairs that you guys are worried about and I promise you that we wont let any of you down.

As I said earlier....this is meant to be more of an informative post not meant to induce panic....in some respect looking purely at the numbers I still question whether it was something we should have waited to see get worse, because right now a huge percentage of AFR head owners are probably worried over nothing. Guys that are PM'ing me asking if they have defective valves or not I dont have an answer for you....hell I dont know if I have defective valves but am not worried as my valvetrain isnt any noiser than the day I fired her for the first time. The next time I have my covers off for a valve adjustment (soild roller) I will certainly take a second look though....would be silly if I didnt.

And BTW, if some of you are now uncomfortable and are second guessing the purchase of our product while I am sorry to hear that understand that we felt an obligation to all of our customers that already chose to purchase our product. Believe me, coming foward with this information wasnt the easist thing to do, but what we felt was the right thing to do....and we knew going in that doing the right thing might cost us a few sales till the smoke clears from this situation. Alot of times the right thing is the more painful road to take but years from now when our integrity is still intact a few lost sales here and there wont even be a blip on our radar.

Guys...I will keep you updated and in the event you have some problems we will make it right. Just contact us directly if you think you might be having any issues. My personal extension is 109 and the phone is (661)257-8124

Thanks,
Tony