No one could tell me exactly why the valves burn on the 3.0's. I had 2 seperate within 6yrs and less than 40k miles. I was told that the main reason for a burnt valve is from the engine running lean, yet both of mine were on the rear where most of the heat is, and is why I went to headers to get around the oem set-up.

$2k is as cheap as I could find doing the work myself, complete rebuild of both heads(included new valves, guides, etc. and valve adj. $575, engine gasket set $200, Knock sensor & wire $165, T-belt $80, headers $350, exhuast/x-over/Muffler/cat/O2 sensor about $600. The only work I paid for was the heads, everything else I did at home, i supposed I could have saved some money by building the heads myself, but the shop was more convienant.

With my mod's I am happy with the 3.0, I get good mpg when light on the throttle, and my rig weighs 1500 lbs over stock. It wasn't a nad engine at the time it was released, none of the domestics had a comprable engine in their mini's until the 4.3 vortec in the S-10's.

Those cam's are interesting, too bad they weren't available 2 yrs ago, kind of hard to justify $600 now, and the smog Nazi's here in CA probably wouldn't pass them, it took yrs before Downey's headers became smog legal.