318 Heads: bad valve job?

Sorry Rob.
To the OP - my apologies if you felt the post went a direction that wasn't helping. IMO - the heads are not done properly and cutting the stems isn't the right move. It might be usable for a stock application - generally lifters have enough travel to accomodate such variences, but the ability to work with crap doesn't make it right or worthy of cash outlay. It looks like typical of a mass rebuilder level of qualty that is by design supposed to get out of the warranty period and sometimes they actually do.

By the way - my guess is aside from the poor workmanship they used the truck exh valve that should run with the valve rotators. The passenger car valve for a "302" head in Sealed Power is a V2141 - 1.50" dia head, 4.982 overall length. The truck valve could be the V2141 or Sealed power V2154 - 1.50" dia head, 4.994 overall length. If these heads had the rotators they would have 2 groove keepers and a longer valve. If not they should be 4 groove and the same length valve as the intake. I think if you stack up the .012" in length difference and the .020 or so difference in the retainer thickness from the rotator to the std retainer you'll be close to how far it's off.