Caveat Emptor.... Livernois Heads (Pic heavy)

[FalconGTHO]

Just curious, doesn't SHM have a negative review? I was looking at some of their parts but saw that they had a negative review and was dismayed by them.

Sorry OP for bring your thread off track

I wouldnt buy bicycle parts from SHM.

 

[TurboX]

I read an article that discussed bronze guides and tolerances that specifically talked about exhaust valves and the problems with heat and expansion. The article was written about bronze guides in cast iron heads but the symptoms he described were eerily similiar to mine. The article can be read here. If you have the chance this is a very interesting read.



My advice is to stay away from the bronze guides. They aren't worth the money or the trouble.

I am not disagreeing with the information you posted about, it was some good reading.

I am putting more info out there to think about, my stock heads on a Factory built Ford motor showed extreme wear with only 5000 miles on it, 2000 of those miles were at 550RWHP. This is the original reason a bronze sleeve was inserted into the stock guides in the 1st place.

Second Motor- Only about 5000 miles total, 1000 under no boost, 2500-3000 miles at 550RWHP and about 1500 miles around 700 RWHP. I take heads to have new springs put in and they discover I was about to have several valves seize. All on the exhaust side were trashed and several on the intake side were trashed as well. Builder and I both did some investigating and as I said spoke to a few shops who've built big cars and they all said, use stock guides and set up to stock clearances (.001-.0015). The machine shop did not agree with this because he felt there was still a outlying issue, he suggested removing the springs on the exhaust seals to provide a little extra lubrication but had no doubt that his head guy put the heads together correctly. I have new heads but because of all this, at 3000 miles, I'm prob going to pull them off for inspection just to be safe.

What heads do you guys have, Are they the 09/10 1 piece plug design or older style ?

I tend to agree with you Bruce. In my experience, The geometry would have to be significantly off for valves to bend. This would be noticable during seat grinding, assembly and final vacuum testing.



Obviously I haven't looked at the heads in person. However, to me, it looks like the clearance between the valve guide and the valves were too tight. This caused the valve to seize in the guide. The valve hung open, the valve hit the piston, bent the valve, and then broke the guide. You can see the witness marks on the piston. Are you running E85 by chance?

See my above comments and Im open to suggestions.

I ran E85 for the 1500 miles around 700RWHP, why did you ask ?

 

[DirtyDogOfTheDesert]

Why should Tre.. even pay for shipping? If Livernois wants their defective part's back they should ship it at their expense, re-emburse all cost back to the customer, and let him go buy a set of heads somewhere else.

 

[Tre06GTP1SC]

I tend to agree with you Bruce. In my experience, The geometry would have to be significantly off for valves to bend. This would be noticable during seat grinding, assembly and final vacuum testing.



Obviously I haven't looked at the heads in person. However, to me, it looks like the clearance between the valve guide and the valves were too tight. This caused the valve to seize in the guide. The valve hung open, the valve hit the piston, bent the valve, and then broke the guide. You can see the witness marks on the piston. Are you running E85 by chance?

No E85 here

 

[mike@livernois]

Mike,

Since you are chiming in I was wondering if you wouldn't mind answering a couple questions with some specifics and not just "our ports flat work and win races".

What are the current dimensions of the intake ports on the 3 valve stage III head?

Not sure of this off hand, I just deal with the engine side for the most part, so I will have to inquire.

When did the most current CNC program start?

Again not sure on this one, will have to inquire with the cylinder head department.

What are the pros and cons of having a larger port than the manifold?

Most of the time you would want a relatively smooth transition from the intake port in the manifold to the head port. This disrupts the airflow the least. On applications where there is intake reversion possible a small lip on the intake manifold side may prevent some of this reversion from happening, thusly the intake manifold side would be slightly smaller that the cylinder head port side. But most of this has to do with lower air speeds and is probably a moot point when the engine is running at higher RPM, also factoring in pressure in the intake manifold from a blower or turbo also changes the way this dynamic would work.

How much boost and vacuum should the OEM o-ring be able to hold back if the port is encroaching on the o-ring?

The factory o-ring is fairly robust and in most cases the o-ring will suffice at levels in the mid 20s on boost without an issue. Vacuum the same. If the surface is reduced that the o-ring sits on than this may compromise the sealing ability, but this would depend on how much surface is missing.

Have you guys seen any performance gains between the new and old castings?

Not really, the ports themselves between the two are as identical as any CNC ported 3 Valve castings would be, there are very very minor differences, but nothing that shows up in terms of airflow or power at these levels

Thanks

Brian

Listed above

 

[BruceH]

I am not disagreeing with the information you posted about, it was some good reading.

I am putting more info out there to think about, my stock heads on a Factory built Ford motor showed extreme wear with only 5000 miles on it, 2000 of those miles were at 550RWHP. This is the original reason a bronze sleeve was inserted into the stock guides in the 1st place.

Second Motor- Only about 5000 miles total, 1000 under no boost, 2500-3000 miles at 550RWHP and about 1500 miles around 700 RWHP. I take heads to have new springs put in and they discover I was about to have several valves seize. All on the exhaust side were trashed and several on the intake side were trashed as well. Builder and I both did some investigating and as I said spoke to a few shops who've built big cars and they all said, use stock guides and set up to stock clearances (.001-.0015). The machine shop did not agree with this because he felt there was still a outlying issue, he suggested removing the springs on the exhaust seals to provide a little extra lubrication but had no doubt that his head guy put the heads together correctly. I have new heads but because of all this, at 3000 miles, I'm prob going to pull them off for inspection just to be safe.

What heads do you guys have, Are they the 09/10 1 piece plug design or older style ?



See my above comments and Im open to suggestions.

I ran E85 for the 1500 miles around 700RWHP, why did you ask ?

That's interesting Buzz. I'm still on my original heads with 35,000+ miles. Over 20,000 of that has been boosted. 3 different sets of cams, upgraded springs, and on 3 different blocks. Haven't even had to resurface as they always passed the straight edge/feeler gauge inspection.

 

[MexGT]

so my car has bronze guides from Livernois .... should I be worried? lol

 

[Back@itagain]

Mike,

Since you are chiming in I was wondering if you wouldn't mind answering a couple questions with some specifics and not just "our ports flat work and win races".

What are the current dimensions of the intake ports on the 3 valve stage III head?

Not sure of this off hand, I just deal with the engine side for the most part, so I will have to inquire.

When did the most current CNC program start?

Again not sure on this one, will have to inquire with the cylinder head department.

What are the pros and cons of having a larger port than the manifold?

Most of the time you would want a relatively smooth transition from the intake port in the manifold to the head port. This disrupts the airflow the least. On applications where there is intake reversion possible a small lip on the intake manifold side may prevent some of this reversion from happening, thusly the intake manifold side would be slightly smaller that the cylinder head port side. But most of this has to do with lower air speeds and is probably a moot point when the engine is running at higher RPM, also factoring in pressure in the intake manifold from a blower or turbo also changes the way this dynamic would work.

How much boost and vacuum should the OEM o-ring be able to hold back if the port is encroaching on the o-ring?

The factory o-ring is fairly robust and in most cases the o-ring will suffice at levels in the mid 20s on boost without an issue. Vacuum the same. If the surface is reduced that the o-ring sits on than this may compromise the sealing ability, but this would depend on how much surface is missing.

Have you guys seen any performance gains between the new and old castings?

Not really, the ports themselves between the two are as identical as any CNC ported 3 Valve castings would be, there are very very minor differences, but nothing that shows up in terms of airflow or power at these levels

Thanks

Brian

Listed above

I appreciate the response Mike and will wait for any further information you may be able to provide. Attached is a picture of the OEM o-ring. As you can see by the wear pattern, this is all I have trying to make a seal. The manifold is torqued to the recommended Whipple specification of 89 in/lbs (off the top of my head). I know it is difficult to tell from a picture, but considering the cross section of the o-ring measures +/- .0575", do you think this is sufficient to contain 18 psi? Would it be beneficial to increase the torque on the bolts to say 100 in/lbs or would this cause the o-ring to "deflect" and possibly fall into the intake port?

Sorry for bombarding you with questions but unfortunately this seems to be the only way for me to get some "techinical time" with you guys?

Thanks again

Brian

 

[Back@itagain]

Ive been talking to Mike @ Livernois all day today....

He told me that they had casting problems with some of their earlier heads. He wants me to ship the heads back to them. It is my understanding after talking with Mike that once Livernois takes a look and makes a determination that they will repair the heads or if it is a casting issue they will send me a new set.

My fear is that it is a casting issue and if I have the machine shop they are at now repair the guides, valve job, etc eventually this will happen again. If it is a problem with the casting (which I think it is) the geometry is off. If I have the machine shop repair them without letting Livernois get their chance to make it right first and they fail again, I cannot in good conscience blame Livernois or expect them to take care of the problem.

After talking to Mike I am having the heads, cams, everything boxed up and shipped to Livernois.

I will post results when I get them. Bottom line is I want this fixed and I want to know why this is happening. I have too much money tied up in this short block.

I'm glad to hear they want to try and rectify the situation. I have come of the opinion similar to what some of the other guys have alluded to. It seems some of the shops that are furtunate enough to be succesful start to think their "$H!T dont stink" when dealing with the customer and lose touch and the ability to properly communicate with the customers to resolve their concerns.

Seems Mike@Livernois is still able to come out of the engine dyno room for air everyone once in a while and flex his customer skills. Seems he gets thrown into these threads fairly regularly/consistently for this very reason...rather refreshing to see I must say!


Tre06GTP1SC...I had every intention of thanking you for your service in my original post but I got side tracked. I apologize for that. Coming from an Army/Military family full of active duty, retired and civial servants I know the level of commitment required and the sacrifices that are made. Its seems to be something easier said than done.

Thanks

Brian

 

[mike@livernois]

AFAIK yes, I just wanted a ready set with stock guides, the 3VPA ones are cnc'd but with stock guides and components.

I had two issues with Livernois stage III heads, one is that on the first set, driver's side came broken beyond repair locally.

The replacement driver's head (and the passenger's that was already here) have guide issues, first thing we checked were that the seals, that came out as someone pictured here:

www.s197forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=47473

So, I changed all the seals with the engine to see how it behaves, the thing was the same. Livernois recognized they had some guides issues.

Took engine out and replaced heads with 3VPA with 26125's and no more oil. Scoped the engine for checkup due to a phaser failure I had recently and there is no more oil anywhere.

BTW, Mike, is still open the offer to receive the heads to try to repair the broken and the guides on the other so I could recover something of the 4.500$ I am down as of now? Think I have found a way to ship them back



I can give you 1st, 2nd, 3rd... hand opinions on SHM.

I would think that this offer still stands, though I'm not really in the loop often on these dealings. If you have heads that need repair then I would definitely say we want to work with you to try and fix them. Is this something you were speaking with Dave on? I would be glad to talk to him and get further info if needed.

Thanks

To OP,Lito and Mike:

Can you tell me what heads you guys have ? I have a 2010 GT with very low miles. I installed my Hellion kit on the car with less than 3000 miles and after it was tuned I was making 550RWHP. I drove the car for 2000 miles and then put in a built short block, at the time I had a local machine shop do a valve job and I upgraded my springs and valves. I got about 5000 miles on the car before I had a unrelated issue caused me to replace the short block. Since I was now adding cams, I took the heads back to machine shop and I received a call. The machine shop said that I was lucky I pulled the motor apart because my valves were beaten and at any moment they were gonna seize and drop a valve.

Speaking to the machine shop, he noticed they had put bronze liners the 1st time they got the heads. Apparently my guides were in bad shape the 1st time I took them in, now 5000 miles later and they were in bad shape again. I spoke to John Mihovitz and Michael@ L&M and both told me to use stock guides. Originally the machine shop chalked it up to bonze liners being a bad idea but that didn't explain why my guides were damaged with only 5000 miles on the new car.

BTW- Tre, thank you for your service

I am now very scared, I have a ticking time bomb. My motor is about to fire for the 1st time tomorrow and Im looking at making between 750-850RWHP. Is it possible this issue isn't a Livornois issue but more a issue where Ford had a bad batch of heads manufactured ?

I am not disagreeing with the information you posted about, it was some good reading.

I am putting more info out there to think about, my stock heads on a Factory built Ford motor showed extreme wear with only 5000 miles on it, 2000 of those miles were at 550RWHP. This is the original reason a bronze sleeve was inserted into the stock guides in the 1st place.

Second Motor- Only about 5000 miles total, 1000 under no boost, 2500-3000 miles at 550RWHP and about 1500 miles around 700 RWHP. I take heads to have new springs put in and they discover I was about to have several valves seize. All on the exhaust side were trashed and several on the intake side were trashed as well. Builder and I both did some investigating and as I said spoke to a few shops who've built big cars and they all said, use stock guides and set up to stock clearances (.001-.0015). The machine shop did not agree with this because he felt there was still a outlying issue, he suggested removing the springs on the exhaust seals to provide a little extra lubrication but had no doubt that his head guy put the heads together correctly. I have new heads but because of all this, at 3000 miles, I'm prob going to pull them off for inspection just to be safe.

What heads do you guys have, Are they the 09/10 1 piece plug design or older style ?



See my above comments and Im open to suggestions.

I ran E85 for the 1500 miles around 700RWHP, why did you ask ?

In regards to the bronze guides versus cast (powdered guides)-

We use to use a bronze guide in both the stage 2 and 3 head. This was somewhat out of intended application and also because when doing the CNC work its important to not clip the guide or cut the stock guides down in anyway. So we replaced them all together.

Over time though we started working more on the materials in the guides and found that the majority of applications that people were using the stage 2 and even stage 3 heads in most cases were within the threshold of stock guides. So we switched the stock guides to stage 2 and use only the bronze guides on stage 3 heads. We also developed a method of pushing the stock guides in and out in order to perform the CNC work on the head without disturbing the original guide position relative to the factory bore on the casting.

In most cases I would suggest using whatever guide material fits the application. For most street/strip cars that make power in the 500-700hp level the stock guide will work fine. For applications beyond that power level looking at bronze guides is not a bad option. The materials used to make the guides are an important factor, this corresponds with the heat transfer ability as well as the lubricity of the material. The guide needs to be able to remove heat from the valve. This is especially important in applications where small stem valves (6mm) and small head dimensions limit contact area between the valve and the casting. As the valve heats up from combustion it needs to dissipate this heat, if it does not it will eventually tear up the valve and seize in the guide. A lot of the heat is transferred by contact between the valve head and the valve seat. Unfortunately for a 3 valve application there is not much area for contact and this means limited heat transfer, so the guide needs to help get rid of some of this heat too.

In a 300-400 hp application getting rid of that heat is not a problem, but when you double that and are dealing with 800 hp its critical to get rid of this excess heat, otherwise you will have guide problems down the road. This is where a material like bronze alloy comes into play. It allows for better heat transfer and a slightly tighter clearance than the cast iron. You have to account for the growth factor of the bronze alloy being different but you can get away with fairly tight clearances and in combination with the better heat transfer the material offers this helps keeps the guides and valves living a long happy life.

The amount of oil that is allowed into the guide for lubrication is also critical. A valve seal is a metering device for oil, it's not supposed to completely remove all the oil. It's supposed to control the amount of oil that gets down to the valveguide area. With that said there are sometimes two different seals are needed for different guides, meaning if you took the cast iron guide seal and put it on the bronze guide it could have adverse effects, and vice-versa. The bronze guide requires a certain amount of oil on it to work properly, and that's a different amount in most cases than a cast iron guide. The material of the guide also has to be "hard" enough that it does not wear away from use, a cast iron (powdered) does not suffer as much from this because it's wear properties are different than that of a bronze guide.

So with all this said its very important to target the guides for the intended application. You can get away with a cast guide (powdered) in a lot of applications, but if you get into a really high power application and heat is a concern you need to do everything you can to get the heat out of the valve. The first thing to do and most cost effective in most cases is changing to a bronze guide, if you still need to remove more heat than switching from a stock powdered or sintered iron valve seat to an alloy copper seat will really help a lot.

In regards to this topic though the main thing we want is to get the heads back and try and determine what is wrong with them. First step is coming up with something conclusive as to why the failure happened. Next step is figuring out how to fix that. At least that's how I usually treat things of this manner.

Thanks

 

[mike@livernois]

I appreciate the response Mike and will wait for any further information you may be able to provide. Attached is a picture of the OEM o-ring. As you can see by the wear pattern, this is all I have trying to make a seal. The manifold is torqued to the recommended Whipple specification of 89 in/lbs (off the top of my head). I know it is difficult to tell from a picture, but considering the cross section of the o-ring measures +/- .0575", do you think this is sufficient to contain 18 psi? Would it be beneficial to increase the torque on the bolts to say 100 in/lbs or would this cause the o-ring to "deflect" and possibly fall into the intake port?

Sorry for bombarding you with questions but unfortunately this seems to be the only way for me to get some "techinical time" with you guys?

Thanks again

Brian

Definitely a small area to work with. Increasing the bolt torque will probably provide little to any additional clamping force because the bolt is just stretching most likely at that end of the torque spectrum. In most cases the manifolds are designed to compress the o-rings completely as well. This means that when you are torquing the bolt and the manifold is being clamped to the head you have actually brought the two metal mating surfaces together fully. The o-ring is already compressed before that point. So additional clamping force won't do any good for the o-ring.

The durometer or "density" of the rubber is a factor in determining the sealing ability under pressure. The rubber needs to be stiff enough to resist deflection from pressure which would break the seal. The seal pictured looks to be stock which is of a decent durometer to work with most applications. If high boost levels are encountered though and an extra margin of safety is wanted then stepping up to something with a little higher durometer is probably a safer bet. Unfortunately to my knowledge nobody makes aftermarket replacement seals. If it were me I would most likely look at getting a generic o-ring from an online company that sells just o-rings. I would steer away from the round style o-ring and look for o-rings with a flat surface, or a square cut style o-ring. Something that has a wider edge than the stock one too. There are millions of o-rings out there, so if you call one of those companies I would be willing to be there is some o-ring from some application that would fit just perfect.

That's just an idea though, something I've done in the past on custom things I've built for myself.

Do you have a leak now with this o-ring?

Thanks

 

[Back@itagain]

Definitely a small area to work with. Increasing the bolt torque will probably provide little to any additional clamping force because the bolt is just stretching most likely at that end of the torque spectrum. In most cases the manifolds are designed to compress the o-rings completely as well. This means that when you are torquing the bolt and the manifold is being clamped to the head you have actually brought the two metal mating surfaces together fully. The o-ring is already compressed before that point. So additional clamping force won't do any good for the o-ring.

The durometer or "density" of the rubber is a factor in determining the sealing ability under pressure. The rubber needs to be stiff enough to resist deflection from pressure which would break the seal. The seal pictured looks to be stock which is of a decent durometer to work with most applications. If high boost levels are encountered though and an extra margin of safety is wanted then stepping up to something with a little higher durometer is probably a safer bet. Unfortunately to my knowledge nobody makes aftermarket replacement seals. If it were me I would most likely look at getting a generic o-ring from an online company that sells just o-rings. I would steer away from the round style o-ring and look for o-rings with a flat surface, or a square cut style o-ring. Something that has a wider edge than the stock one too. There are millions of o-rings out there, so if you call one of those companies I would be willing to be there is some o-ring from some application that would fit just perfect.

That's just an idea though, something I've done in the past on custom things I've built for myself.

Do you have a leak now with this o-ring?

Thanks

Not sure if there is a leak or not. I removed the blower and manifold this winter to do some additional work. These are a set of Livernois stage III heads that have been replaced once already down at your guys' shop due to the valve guide/seal issues. Before putting the manifold back on, I looked down at the backsides of the intake valves just to see if there were any problems. I noticed 1 single intake valve was coated in burnt oil. It was in the number 8 cylinder nearest the firewall. Andy suggested a bad injector spray pattern and Dan suggested a possible leak at the manifold. Thats what prompted me to mic the intake ports and discovered they were "aggressivley" CNC'd into the o-ring.

Not liking to do things twice and since the car is already torn down I would prefer to address this issues/potential issue before putting it back together, getting a start up tune and carb spraying it.

Lots of good info Mike.

Thanks

Brian

 

[TurboX]

Thanks

Thank you for the explanation.

 

[ford20]

Judging by what everyone is saying it gets you a little bit concerned about buying heads with the bronze guides. But after reading what Mike is saying it does make sense for most applications to dissipate heat but it seems to be causing more harm than good in some applications. Would there be a way to make sure this wouldn't happen if you needed Stage 3 heads for a N/A application since you wouldn't need the bronze guides but would require the oversized valves and ported heads?

 

[BoostedGT480]

Looks like when time comes for me I'm using fox lake.

I would vote for Ron at Foxlake!...I have my heads who were done by him...Nothing but good stuff about him from all the research ive done

 

[twisted_GT500]

When it comes to cars....some things I know in depth, and some things I have very limited knowledge. I understand how the heads work, but really appreciate all the additional info that is being posted in here. It's really helping to educate so that informed decision can be made for future purchases. Also nice to see a Livernois rep being proactive and trying to help determine and fix the problem!

Just want to throw that out there

 

[BruceH]

Judging by what everyone is saying it gets you a little bit concerned about buying heads with the bronze guides. But after reading what Mike is saying it does make sense for most applications to dissipate heat but it seems to be causing more harm than good in some applications. Would there be a way to make sure this wouldn't happen if you needed Stage 3 heads for a N/A application since you wouldn't need the bronze guides but would require the oversized valves and ported heads?

If it's a concern for your build then find a company or shop with a record of success in this department. There are many. Reaming bronze and using a ball or plug gauge is fairly easy, the trick is finding a shop with experience on what the proper hole size and tolerances need to be.

When there is a part of the build you don't understand or have the experience or tooling to perform it's best to find someone who has a proven track record with what you want done. Even better is to do your own research on what has worked for others and find a shop who will educate you on what they do and why. In my experience the chaff falls away from the wheat fairly quickly when you ask "so, why do you do it that way?".

Lucky for me I have a local shop with experienced head porters. They do it by hand and then flow on a bench to make sure everything is matched.

 

[05stroker]

Mike/Livernois

So, what is the proper valve to guide clearance for a 700-800 rwhp motor with bronze guides?

 

[Marc s]

It would be interesting to know what the stem to guide clearance is on the other valves. FWIW, I tear down every aftermarket head that I get into the shop. What I normally see is hour glassing. If the inside of the guide looks like an hourglass, then the guides were honed with way too much over stroke at the top and bottom. Then, when the assembler checks the clearance, it would appear that everything is fine even though the middle of the guide is tight. I see a lot of after market heads with this problem.

 

[05stroker]

Mike/Livernois

So, what is the proper valve to guide clearance for a 700-800 rwhp motor with bronze guides?

It would be interesting to know what the stem to guide clearance is on the other valves. FWIW, I tear down every aftermarket head that I get into the shop. What I normally see is hour glassing. If the inside of the guide looks like an hourglass, then the guides were honed with way too much over stroke at the top and bottom. Then, when the assembler checks the clearance, it would appear that everything is fine even though the middle of the guide is tight. I see a lot of after market heads with this problem.

Reason I asked my question is because I used the bronze guides from Livernois in my heads ( purchased by me) and the where assembled locally by a very reputable machine shop around here and I have the reamer that was used (I bought it). I would like to see what they should be clearanced at to see if I was correct or not.