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Originally Posted by mgarblik
r
Good points. Castings might have to come from a foreign location, but in small runs, possibly a US foundry looking for work. As the economy contracts, US based business looks for smaller orders to fill the gaps while waiting for recovery and government/large orders. Agree making a piece of crap iron head is not solving a problem, just making a new one. Making an iron replacement for a very rare casting number or a round port head seems to be a non-starter. Taking a tiny market and splicing it up into a potential market of a couple hundred people would be death. If 10% of those folks bought 1 pair of heads, that's 40 heads total and probably would be less. Round port cars are valuable and most are not driven much. Owners are pretty locked into wanting OE vintage iron for the auction/show crowd and not really using the cars to race or drive much. The handful who are have the choice of OE or at least 3 round port options in aluminum. This is why a D-port "replacement" head is being discussed. In Ohio, at least, to get a pair of iron heads up to the flow rate of out of the box aluminum heads you are looking at $4000.00+. Taking core iron D-port iron heads and just refurbishing them back to their mediocre stock performance is at least, $1500.00. That's thermal clean/blast, 16 new guides, 16 new seats, screw-in studs, proper valve job, bowl clean. Proper resurfacing (no porting) Still left with 50-60 year old iron castings with internal erosion.
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Just did a little research. EQ out of Chicago ( yep, EQ, not EC. Got the name mixed up with the company I used to purchase aircraft engine cylinders from) is selling their 305/350 Vortec cylinder heads for $640 per set. These are bare heads that are cast in New Zealand. Everyone I
have talked to about the EQ heads say the quality is great( actually better than the Mexico cast OE Vortec heads). Sand casting isn’t rocket science. One of the pilots I knew ran a foundry for the U.S. Navy. Al ( the pilot) told me all about the difference in sand casting and lost wax casting( known today as investment casting). From what he described once you have a casting prototype the main expense is in actually producing the molds.