Cylinder Head Condition

[tomd]

I recently purchased reconditioned heads off of ebay and there is some minor damage, two small nicks close to the combustion chamber. The head has been surfaced and these nicks were left behind. Look at the picture and let me know if you think there will be a problem.

 

[bradfordsvettes]

lay the head gasket on the head if the nicks are not in the sealing area of the compression ring you should be alright if there are any sharp edges in those areas carfully sand them smooth to prevent any preignition from hot spots :TALK steve

 

[tomd]

Thanks Steve. I had thought about the hot spots but not the potential sealing problem. Tom

 

[taegdh]

The ones on the face of the head where it was machined shouldn't be a problem. The gasket material on the face would cover and fill them.

It looks like you have a pair of "dings" where the flat meets the concave portion of the compbustion chamber, right down at the base of where the spark plug would be.

You really need to have it ground and try to make it smooth through the whole arc. As it is, the place which sticks up between the two dings is a going to cause more surface turbulence, and is prime place to have carbon build up and the metal become significantly hotter, a prime cause of predetonation.

I know this may cause an uneven volume of combustion chamber, but a bad case of the aforementioned predetonation is significantly worse. Plus the temperature "Hot spot" is not a good thing on aluminum heads... You are looking at a difference of a few cc's in the one combustion chamber. If you think it will make a significant difference in cylinder pressures, you might consider doing the same on all combustion chambers.

I wouldn't leave it the way it is.