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C6 Corvette ZR1 & Z06General info about GM’s Corvette Supercar, LS9 Corvette Technical Info, Performance Upgrades, Suspension Setup for Street or Track
So with about 63K miles on my original heads (2006) and my Vehicle 1 warranty (I highly recommend this company) about to expire I had my heads wiggle tested. Not surprisingly the guides were shot and out of spec at .007 and more. I received brand new GM performance heads (complete with springs/valves/retainers). They went straight to Richard at WCCH who has always done my head work and has my full confidence. I told him I was not porting these as I did on my 2008 car and for him to inspect and do what ever he wanted keeping in mind its a daily driver and sees one AutoX day a month. Below you will see the measurements he found on the heads straight from the factory well within spec. He sent out the intakes for polishing at Del West. He also decked the heads .005 as he found scratches also seen in pictures below!! He did not find a full valve job necessary when checking for concentricity and only did some minor lapping of the valve seats, again see pictures. He said he expected many tens of thousands of miles to be expected out of this setup. So I had my completely stock in spec new heads installed by Donny at Rydell Chevrolet who did his usual flawless and professional installation including soaking lifters and removing carbon deposits on piston heads. I had him install new lifters, spark plugs and wires. I always felt this motor was a quiet one but now its REALLY quiet, the quietest LS7 I have ever heard and Donny also note he was very pleased how quiet it is.
DH
Last edited by Dirty Howie; 09-10-2018 at 01:43 PM.
So gm still can't do a basic valve job? Sickening.
Congrats and good work.
Well you certainly know a lot more than I do about this. I don't know how significant the lapping that Richard had to do on the seats was. I can't really quantify the imperfection noted in the pictures. Would this have evolved into the failure mode we see with the heads??
Any reason you didn’t option Che bronze guides from Wcch over the stock gm guides?
Yes. My belief and it ssupported by manny sources that there is nothing wrong with the OEM metal guides. Many feel they are superior to bronze. Since Richard determined that the guides were good and advised that I should keep them thats what I did.
Old heads....some guides at .007.
Sheesh.
Thanks Linamar. Dirty Howie is yet another guy who's taken you off his Christmas Card list.
New heads...pretty darn good for stem clearance. Any numbers for seat concentricity.
WCCH. Awesome shop. Once again Richard dos a great job for one of we CF ZO6ers. Thanks, Richard!
Hib,
No numbers just that they were not bad thus not needing full valve job. They just needed some minor "lapping" that he provided pictures to demonstrate. Did you see the pictures??
09-08-2018, 10:52 PM
Replaced My Heads:Photos and Data!
