So where did you go for this? (meaning a special head/engine rebuilder)? I tried looking up places by me, and of the 3 I called, 2 never called back and the 3rd would only do an entire engine rebuild, for north of $3000.
It was just a local performance/machine shop.
The shop that gave me the $600 quote is a place I go to for odds and ends -- they referred me - it's the same place they use for machine work. You might just try calling a few local repair shops, or if you have a place you go to once in a while ask who they'd suggest for a head rebuild.
Did you pull the heads yourself, send them out and reinstall them? Did you have "supervision" <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/pfft.gif" alt="" /> or a shop manual? Sorry for all the dumb questions.
Yeah, I pulled them and reinstalled them myself -- that's the only way to keep the cost down.
It's that removal/installation time that costs.
I would bet the shop that rebuilt my heads didn't have more than a couple hours in them. They just disassemble them, cook them, surface and reassemble -- stuff they can do in their sleep.
I had a Haynes manual, but didn't use it much. As deep as I had been into it already for valve seals/timing belt there wasn't much left to get the heads off, basically just intake and exhaust manifolds. Plus the water lines and such that are bolted to the heads.
There was as much or more work getting the accessories out of the way (PS/Alt/AC, and electrical/air/water stuff attached to the intake) as getting the heads themselves out.
Keeping all the parts, especially nuts and bolts, straight as they're removed is key.
But all in all, it's the type of thing anyone with some tools and some common sense can figure out.
I picked the brains of a couple guys at the machine shop. Told them up front I've never removed or installed a head before. They gave me a couple pointers on block prep and sent me on my way.
