Long story short, I bought an engine off a guy (440) that was building it for racing 8 years ago. Its been along time coming, but I've finally got down to building my car to get it on the road.
The engine was way too aggressive (.562 / 296 degree cam), so I replaced the cam and valve springs.
This is where it gets interesting. When changing my last springs the cylinder won't hold any air (first flag). I could see that the valve wasn't properly seated. low and behold, the sleeve where the valve comes through the head is cracked. When I took the heads off I could see that the valve had hit the piston, bent the valve and cracked the sleeve (head).
i've been told that the heads can be sent out and repaired, but do I take the risk? Or should I just buy new heads (which I know are good) and try to forget this whole disaster happened?
Looking for any input to help me in this decision. Here are some pictures of the bent valve, piston, and cylinder sleeve head.

 

Need more info, heads casting number, any porting or other work done?

 

I'm pretty new at this, so bare with me. I'm assuming that the casting numbers are 4006452 (both sides had it stamped) and one had 2685 and the other 2675.
This is what the guy had wrote down about the heads
- 81cc heads, fully ported 2.14/ 1.74 manly proflow valves - .565" lift springs, hardened retainers - locks.

do you want to know everything that was done to the engine, or is this good?

 

is it only one valve guide thats damaged ? you could get 1 bronze valve guide made up & get the other one checked . thats a lot cheaper then new heads .

 

2x on what deadkelly said. ported 452 heads flow pretty good for a stock head.Keep that big cam in case you want more power in the future.

 

3x on that, those 2 are on the right track

 

so i ordered the edelbrock heads this morning. pretty excited to see how they look on the engine (not to mention how they run!).

i think i'll still look in to getting them (old ones) fixed. see how much it is, and then decide from there.

 

Which CC? 84 or 88 cc? And how did you choose?

 

when you said your cam was to aggressive can you give me a bit of insight about it's behavior & street manners & how it drove ???? did you run it over the 1/4 mile ? if so what did it run . as my cam should be quite similar but I'm using smaller cid . any info would be good .
what cam are you looking at changing to ??? & what are you wanting from your new set up ????????

 

what kind?

 

.562 is a lot of lift, if he added to it with higher than stock rocker arm ratio he just added to the risk of piston contact. I would check the clearance with some modeling clay to see what you've got. Put some cooking oil on the valve so that it does not stick to the clay and ruin the test.

 

I got the 609 84cc. It was what the guy recommended for the set up of my engine. I had already bought the cam (pro comp), intake (edelbrock 440 performer), and carb (750 demon) through him.

As for the engine, I never had it running before al this. I bought it 8-9 years ago but never had the resources to get the car up and running.

As for the new cam, I believe its a got a .477 lift. I'll comfirm that tomorrow after I have a look at the specs on it again. All I want is a solid muscle car for summer, day to day driving. Oviously I want all the power I can, but I still want it to idle at the red lights!

Hopefully I can get around to doing the test (putty)this weekend.

One more thing, the valves with the old cam did make contact with a couple of the pistons. I can see a couple haft moon cresents on the top of the pistons. Is this anything I have to worry about?

 

Hmm, valves hitting pistons in a motor that spins 6500 rpm. Nope! Fine in my book!

 

the cam and the heads should make a nice street motor , the half moon crescents should not be a problem but make sure that there are no holes or deep gouges in the pistons the deep gouges will shorten their life and burn through

 

make sure the valves were not affected when the hit the pistons

 

I've put on new heads, so i plan to do the putty test before torquing the head down. The valve marks on the pistons aren't bad so i'll leave them as is.

 

ya, unless there is actually a cut in the piston, just leave them
you probably just have a little mark right?

 

have a look on pic 3 from my original email. Its (the mark on the piston)about as big as a thumb nail. Im not sure, but do I need to worry?

 

if you are referring to the mark a little left and up of the center, unless it is deep, dont worry about it

 

good to hear!