Valve job on my eddys

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demon_408

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well to start with my heads were done by the not so famous BJR Racing in Georgia. first he told me i needed to replace my springs because they didn't have enough seat pressure..he said the had 160 pnds.... so i bought new springs 240 pnds on the seat almost $300. but if he would have checked the spring pressure with the retainers on he would have seen that they were 202pnd not 160... and then Mr hightech does a race valve job with some bull**** stones from 1970 and the valves were not even seating all the way around the seat which really pissed me off .. so what i want is for someone to explain to me how the hell the heads flow what he says if he cant even do a damn valve job right... then he didnt even wash the damn thins before putting them back together... hell he even glass beaded my valve stems.. so what i am saying is that it is pure bull**** work and for those of you who are thinkin of sending your stuff to him i wouldn't but its your choice. Just had to tell oyu guys what happened...so if you are listening mbeck.....mikesduster beware!
 
Welcome to club of getting shitty work done to heads. I just found out the shop that did my heads fuicked them up. The guides were 7 thou out between end to end this is with about 400 miles on them.Then I found out the valve stem height was about .063 high with a non-adjustable valvetrain. The guides are stock just knurled. That is about all I can think of right now. I was pissed because I worked there to. I had about a $700 in them heads.
 
Wow,sorry to hear that..Edelbrocks are not cheap to start with let alone someone screwing them up on you,Thats why its so important to find a GOOD and trustworthy machinist, i've got a great one they're expensive but they're work is top notch,and i've got a engine builder that is the ONLY one who'll build my stuff...
 
correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't there a member here that does head work and goes by the name BJR?
 
strokin_408 said:
well to start with my heads were done by the not so famous BJR Racing in Georgia. first he told me i needed to replace my springs because they didn't have enough seat pressure..he said the had 160 pnds.... so i bought new springs 240 pnds on the seat almost $300. but if he would have checked the spring pressure with the retainers on he would have seen that they were 202pnd not 160... and then Mr hightech does a race valve job with some bull**** stones from 1970 and the valves were not even seating all the way around the seat which really pissed me off .. so what i want is for someone to explain to me how the hell the heads flow what he says if he cant even do a damn valve job right... then he didnt even wash the damn thins before putting them back together... hell he even glass beaded my valve stems.. so what i am saying is that it is pure bull**** work and for those of you who are thinkin of sending your stuff to him i wouldn't but its your choice. Just had to tell oyu guys what happened...so if you are listening mbeck.....mikesduster beware!
Click to expand...

did you contact him and let him know what your opinion of the work was? he seems like a good guy from what i have read but never dealt with him for business. hopefully there is a good explanation and/or resolution. keep us posted.
 
Yes BJR is a member here. And very well respected I might add. I haven't had Bobby do any work for me but I did confer with him via e-mail several times when I was porting and polishing my heads and he was extremely helpful. He sent me some pics of heads he did for reference so I'd know what to do to mine. I know you can't tell everything about pictures but they looked great. It surprises me to see this post.

It sounds like you've taken them somewhere else by your description. As far as the valve spring pressure they are tested at the installed height and at a certain lift height (usually .500-.600) and the retainers are not factored in unless the inner pad on the retainer holds the inner spring in farther than the outer. If you did take them somewhere else I'd like to add that allot of shops will bash another guys work just to make themselves look good. Not always the case but I've seen it allot.

As asked by Redfastback did you contact him about this before posting the problems here? That's the way things should be handled. I've also had a set of heads screwed up in the past by a local machine shop so I understand where you are.

I remember reading some posts about BJR's work and they have always been positive.
 
Strokin, I'm sorry to hear you are having problems with your heads but as you and I talked before I have some heads and engine I bought from him that are working great. It sounds like someone has given you this info but like fishy says a lot of shops will bash others. I hope you contacted BJR to tell him of your problems before bashing him on the site. I do hope you get your head problems worked out and get your car going so you can enjoy it.
 
listen fellas i was there when the heads were tore apart and i seen the **** myself never said the port work was bad just the valve job ...and i have known the guy who is fixin them for many years and he did not bash anyone just told me what was wrong with the heads none of installed heights on the heads were the same .the valves were not seating all the way around.
 
Strokin408,
I tried to contact you and was talked to very vulgarly and the phone was slammed down, I then tried to call back and the call went to your voice mail. Obviously this won't solve any problems. Also to you didn't say that you have ran these heads and didn't have any problems, infact you didnt have the valves adjusted right from the start as you didn't have any cylinder pressure and called me to find out what was going on. Then after readjusting the valves the engine ran and you even did a video of it and showed that you were racing up and down you street in front of your house without any problems. You even carried it to the track and ran 6.90's or something like this. Now if the heads were this bad off how would you be able to run this fast? Also you didn't say that you had the heads for 6 months or more.
Now if you want to talk sanely and NOT BE A HOT HEAD about this, then OK but if not then I cant do anything for you.
 
I should probably leave this alone but in BJR's defense I really think he is getting the raw deal here. Strokin 408 could it be that you over revved your motor and bent some valves. I missed a gear once and hit 8000 rpm and bent 5 out of 8 exhaust valves. When you tore the motor down could you see any marks on the pistons that would be evidence of this. On July 1, 2007 you posted how happy you were with the heads. How could your new head guy know they were put together dirty 9 months ago. How could he know they were bead blasted. I use to bead blast the stems or use a wire wheel on my bench grinder to clean carbon off the stems when I was doing valves jobs. I was only building grocery getters though not race engine but you could not see any marks on the stems. If you would have bent some valves they surely would not seat all the way around and the valves heights would also be different. I am buying my second engine from BJR and will probably take the other set of W5's I just bought to him for porting. I am sure he makes mistakes like we all do but something just dont sound right here to me. How about checking the piston tops for marks where the valves could have hit and let us know. Good luck with your engine.
 
Well, I guess I'm like moparandy and should probably leave this alone but a couple of questions come to mind. First, since BJR Racing is "not so famous", why did you let them do your heads? Second, if this guy that's doing the heads now and that you've known for all these years is so great, why didn't you take them to him first? Just curious.
 
moparandy and dustertogo, you have very good points. i hope this gets resolved and both parties can come to some form of compromise.
 
BJR has always had a solid reputation on this forum. He's been a member here for a while. I am sure that if there were problems with his work and/or the way he handles his business, they would have surfaced long ago.

BOTTOM LINE: I would recommend and use BJR Racing anytime!
 
Now that we've read BJR'S response what is your response strokin 408??...
 
754door said:
Welcome to club of getting shitty work done to heads. I just found out the shop that did my heads fuicked them up. The guides were 7 thou out between end to end this is with about 400 miles on them.Then I found out the valve stem height was about .063 high with a non-adjustable valvetrain. The guides are stock just knurled. That is about all I can think of right now. I was pissed because I worked there to. I had about a $700 in them heads.
Click to expand...

Hey 754door, not to rub salt in your wounds, but I hope the $700 was mostly the purchase price for the heads because it sounds like you got about $2 worth of machine work done. Knurling valve guides is not really a great idea and really only a band-aid approach at best. Hope you got things corrected.
 
Strokin408 and I talked today and I told him that I would let him reply before I said or did anything as this is his thread and not mine
 
First of all, I want to clarify that the engine was never over revved & didn't have no bent valves. The heads were dirty when I got them back, I had to clean them before I put them on the engine.
Furthermore, the guy that fixed my heads is not a port man, so why would I send my heads to him to have port work done.
I spoke to BJR yesterday & as far I am concerned this thread is done.
 
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