re. [urq] P+P heads?

[Ben Swann]

[Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 12:05:14 -0500
From: Andrew B <andrew.sb at gmail.com>
Subject: [urq] P+P heads?
To: urq at audifans.com
Message-ID: <d452ee61050330090530c7188c at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

Looks like I might be about to start repairing the cylinder head on my
crippled quattro, and I've run into a few questions.

It looks like I can have the head decked and a valve job done for
around $400.  This seems like a good way to go, but I figured while
I'm in there, what about porting and polishing?  Any estimates on how
much this will cost?  I'm guessing around 4-600$.

---- This all seems reasonable.  The cost goes up with amount of time doing
the job and there are diminishing returns on time invested after you have
done a basic cleanup of casting flash.

More importantly, has anyone ever done it themselves?
--- Yes - but be careful and disassemble head and remove cam, lifers, valves
springs, fittings, etc. before doing anything.  You will need your bench
laid out to install and remove the valves for lapping/grinding and keepers
is tricky.

It doesn't look to hard, buy a grinder kit and smooth out the inside of the
ports, make the intakes bigger, etc., but I don't want to dig too deep and
ruin everything, either.

----Time, Time, Patience and more time and patience and did I mention be
careful.  Oft recommended to practice on a junk head before doing this as it
is easy to cut into the water jacket.  you'll need lots of different
grindstones and you go through them quickly as they load up with aluminum.
Have lots of masks and wear eye protection!

Any resources?  Should I just have somebody else do it?  Is it not worth it?

---There was a good site which dealt with DIY Porting and Polishing by some
abrasives distributor, but don't recall offhand - ah found it:
http://www.sa-motorsports.com/diyport.shtm this will get you started.

----A good  machine shop can do this quickly, and you are paying for their
tools as well as expertise.  I prefer to do it myself, but time is $ so you
need to base your decision on what your time is worth.  I have done several
and time varies between 8 hours for a casting cleanup and valve lap to over
a week for extensive P&P with port matching to the manifolds.

On a completely unrelated note, when I remove the head, do I need to
remove the crank pulley?  I'm looking at the website in the KB, and
whoever did it removes the crank pulley and bolt, but I'm not totally
sure what for.  I know the belt needs to be loose so you can get the
cam gear off, but why mess around with the crank?

---Not necessary if just dealing with just the head.

Thanks in advance,
-Andrew]
HTH---Ben