Pictures of new aftermarket B2600i cylinder head

stickhunter +1y

Hi all,

This is my first post here, but I've been lurking for a while and enjoying all the great information that the forum contains. I thought it was finally my turn to contribute...

My 1992 B2600i blew its head gasket a few months ago. The radiator tank was cracked, and a lengthy highway drive caused the engine to overheat and necessitated a tow back (ouch $$$!) When I refilled the radiator and hand cranked the engine with the spark plugs removed, I was greeted by the comical sight of two jets of water shooting out of cylinders 3 and 4.

This is the first time I've done a head gasket job, but it was pretty straight forward to remove the intake and exhaust manifolds and pull off the head. The gasket was badly deteriorated and it looked like there had been a long-standing oil leak around cylinder 4 as the passenger side rear head bolt was almost glued in by cooked oil.

I did some light cleaning of the head and then checked the deck for flatness. It was out about 0.012" front-to-back, but this was almost all between the front wall of cylinder 1 and the timing chain opening. With the cost of straightening the head, getting it resurfaced, and having the valve seats reground (they were pitted) approaching that of a rebuilt head, I decided to opt for the latter.

Being in Canada, it looked like my best bet was to order from RockAuto. A rebuilt OEM head with springs and valves would run about $680 CAD all-in shipped. I then read mention here () of new cast heads from Clearwater and enginepartstore.com.

I couldn't find any additional information about the enginepartstore heads, except what they described in the ad ():

They were very quick to answer my questions, both by email and phone, and were willing to help me out with shipping to Canada, so I decided to give them a try. FedEx shipping was included to the lower 48, so I had the head shipped to a mail forwarder in Seattle and I handled the shipping from Seattle to Canada.

The total was $306USD (to Seattle) + $27 CAD (to Canada) + taxes (Canadian), which came out to about $400 CAD all-in. The Canadian dollar has since fallen considerably to the US, and the cost of the head has gone up $20USD, so today's cost would be higher.

Shipping was very fast, and within a week of ordering, I had the head. I had my existing valves reground to the OEM 45* angle, and using Prussian blue to check the seating pattern with the new head, verified that the seating surfaces were concentric, fully-contacting, and of a sufficient width. I'm happy enough with the machined surface fit that my plan is to only lap if there are leaks. Before I install the valve train to check, I thought it would be helpful to include some pictures comparing the new cylinder head to the OEM cylinder head.

The head shipped from Valley Autoparts in California, and is manufactured in the US by CIFIC. According to Valley, the head is fully-prepped (e.g., gasket surfaces ground to OEM spec) and all you have to do is swap over the valve train. I noticed one or two pieces of swarf in the machined holes, so as a precaution, I'd still do a secondary cleaning and inspection of the head. Aside from that, the casting looks very clean and has been nicely deburred and machined. To my untrained eye, it shows equivalent finishing and quality to the OEM head.

As you'll see, there are some minor differences in the heads. I haven't weighed the heads, but from appearances, it looks like the new head has thicker walls. This is most evident around the valve spring seats where you can see the machined surface has higher edges. I also noticed that the secondary air inlets open up smaller into the cylinder on the new head than on the OEM one.

I'll let the pictures do the talking... sorry for rambling and my apologies for any incorrect or confusing terminology (I'm not a mechanic):

Click on the pictures to view a larger image, or head over to the gallery:

Top: