ICDEDPPL

PQ290Enticer

LOL!!!! Now I get it!!! Valve train distress. What do you think with the given info? Just springs?

Unlimited jd

Unless something has changed at afr, their valve guide clearance has always been too tight for marine use. I had a set cost me a lot of time but luckily not too much $$$ even though the “salesman” ensured me many many times they were fine and to the “marine spec”

PQ290Enticer

So this is the 2nd time I've heard that the valve guide tolerances were too close for marine use. Is that across the board with AFR or just my heads?
Is there anyone else running these AFR heads?
Just because I'm enjoying my ride down De-Nile, doesn't mean I'm not listening.
Thanks for your help.

Unlimited jd

Across the board. Just hate for you to stick a valve and wipe out the whole motor

ICDEDPPL

Completely agree. Out of the box any head is not set up for marine use and you have a good chance of sticking a valve.
In a car the head expads at a similiar rate as the valve because coolant is near 180* or so.
I don`t know where you boat but I`m pretty sure the water isn`t 150* and your water temp isn`t anywhere near 180* ... so the valve will expand but the head won`t.. you may be just fine but I woudln`t take that chance.
None of this has anything to do with your bouncing HP numbers , theres something else going on there , doubt theres valve float at 4700 but something is going on there .
I have a great head guy in Illinois if you need one.

540Fever

I can’t speak to your heads, but back in 09 or so I bought a set of 290 AFR heads for a street car. Dropped them off at the shop only to come back a couple weeks later to realize they were completely disassembled. It wasn’t a dig at AFR, but my guy said he pulls all “assembled” heads apart before installing. I don’t recall any major issues, we ended up swapping retainers because they were a bit small for his liking (creating wear/play) and the springs were shimmed kind of strange which was also corrected.

Again, not saying there is an issue but from my limited experience buying new assembled heads, they weren’t perfect out of the box as one would expect.

I also understand your position of having two motors ready to go in that may be spot on and run fine for hundreds of hours. Flip side you pay to install/remove/repair/install.

PQ290Enticer

540Fever, Yup. I missed almost 2 full season's working on these engines between cash flow and everything backordered. Now finally done and It seems everyone thinks I have 2 expensive grenades ready to go off at any time. Obviously it would be beyond terrible if they do grenade but I can't chase something based on opinions of people that had no hand in them at all. Ultimately I'm going with the guys that built and dyno'd these engines. Neither see's a problem with the printout's or the way they performed. If you boat on the Grand River or Lake Michigan and see me getting towed in, be sure to wave and tell me you told me so.

Unlimited jd

What would it cost, and take for time to pull 1 head and bring it to the shop and have the valves removed and clearance checked?

I was trying to buy a boat for sale on here a couple years ago, guy had owned it for a long time, had just finished building 2 555’s for it. He sent me the build sheet/parts list and I offered to buy the boat without the engines for one price or for a bit more with the engines but I didn’t want to even start them.
Seller said he needed to get a bit more for the boat and took another offer of a few bucks more.
The buyer was very green to performance boats, had the boat shipped, stored for the winter, serviced in the spring and as they prepped it for him to use in the Tres Martin course, the first time they ran it under load, it dropped a valve and DESTROYED the engine.

PQ290Enticer

This is only funny for you guys. Believe me, I'm not laughing even a little bit.
I just visited the AFR website and looked at the info for my heads (I'm calling it small print) and low and behold you OSO guys are f'n CORRECT!!!

• Valve Guide Clearance - Your AFR Heads come with proper guide clearance (.0012"-.0016") for most applications. Boosted/Nitrous or marine applications might require additional clearance and it is the customer's responsibility to verify proper clearance in these applications.

So while you guys are on a roll what should be the clearance for marine use for these heads?