on a side note & pardon the hijack...
Ganoid, did you have a problem with Tim at DOA?
the $1200 dollar note in your signature... let me guess, you bought a head you weren't happy with? 'cause that's what happened to me.

there's another board I follow, and everyone praised Tim as this Toyota God, so when I needed a head, I decided to go high perf. and bought one from him that was supposed to have stainless valves, high end springs, and and be this top end porting job. I can't speak for the porting job, but if the valves weren't stock, they CERTAINLY weren't stainless, and who knows about the springs. through the whole process, he was hard to pin down, and wouldn't return my calls or emails on questions and status updates. he cashed my money order as soon as he got it, though. everything felt rushed along, except for the actual build and delivery -- it took about three weeks -- and I felt like I was bothering him with the questions I had. he never even told me when the thing shipped! and when it did show up on the doorstep one afternoon (I asked to have it shipped to my office), it was packed loosely in a box of styrofoam peanuts! at least it was bagged, though it got banged around a little bit. it was clear that a couple of the edges had sustained impact, as they were somewhat flattened, and I never even got a receipt. very very disappointed, and I'll never do business with him again.

later, when I needed an engine, I stumbled onto Ted Stanwood (engnbldr) -- now there's a guy who understands customer service. after speaking with Ted and him patiently answering ALL of my questions -- at this point, I hadn't spent dollar one with him -- I asked if they could build an engine for me. at the time they weren't doing longblocks and I needed one fast, so I ended up going with a Jasper reman. needless to say, I was bummed when I started reading that they started doing longblocks for customers. eh well, anyway, that's where I'm getting my next engine...