Here’s the post we’ve all been waiting for – the miraculous VPD magical cylinder head. I’d like everyone to think about something before you scroll down and look at the pictures. I paid $1000 USD (2 years ago – so about $1200 Canadian at that time) for the head alone. Keep this in mind as we embark on our odyssey of discovery and stand (or sit) in awe of the brilliant craftsmanship that is much lauded on the Brickboard, TurboBricks and various other performance vintage Volvo sites.













Here’s what $1200 bucks gets you.

First shot of the head – note that the mating surface for the intake and exhaust has not been faced flat – and is rusty. Not a good start to our adventure.



Top photo of the head…sealing surface for the valve cover not faced. When I unpacked the head, valve spring number 2 (read from the front) had the pig-tail sitting on the valve cover gasket mounting surface – nice assembly job! It snapped nicely into place when I pushed it over.



Bottom of the head – valves have been checked apparently. The discolouration on the machined surface is rust – yes rust. It was cleaned up with WD-40 prior to shipment.



Close-up view of the rust marks. Impressive craftsmanship. Well New York state is more humid than Lethbridge, and the head was apparently sitting machined face down on something.



This is what I wiped out of the combustion chambers – the ports are equally bad and touching the casting will make your fingers turn black. This is what sitting in a shop for literally years with grinding etc going on will produce.



Port work – I thought exhaust ports were supposed to be smooth? Also note rust. They feel every bit as rough as they look. The exhausts have a bulge towards the top on the sides and an arc carved into the top. The bottom of the casting is untouched (as it should be) the short side radius has the front edge smoothed. Most of the work is at the valve. They are relieved around the valve seat.



More port work examples.



Middle exhaust port set – nice work. Damn that must have taken so long to do. I'd give myself 3 hours tops.



Undercut – swirl polished valves look OK from this angle. The bottom of the port is not really out of focus – it is fuzzy with oily crap. I figure the majority of the flow improvements over stock are due to the valves and the valve job.



The next 4 photo’s show the valves from the sides – photos from front to back. I thought valves were supposed to be the same height?



Next set, neither valve is touching the straight edge by the way.



This one’s concerning, the valve on the right is ground on an angle, that is not a camera trick. This helps flow, perhaps?



Perhaps the best of the set – cylinder 4, there must be 30 thou worth of difference in these heights.



So there you have the pictorial essay of the year. I don’t know what to do, but I’m not going to post these pictures on TBrix or Brickboard until I get my springs and clutch fork (he forgot to ship the clutch fork for some reason – it’s on the bill, but not in the box). I don’t need any help with depression at this point and will likely have to take the head into my machine shop to get the intake/exhaust face cleaned up (could do it with a file I suppose). I don’t know what do about the valves – the height thing is just a lack of craftsmanship on the build side, the one that is angled worries me. How is that valve supposed to rotate when the top is ground at an angle? Well, I suppose the problem is it will rotate and eat my rocker arm.


Scotch helps.
Craig

damn.

Does your camera not focus, or were your hands shaking IN RAGE?

Really sucks, Craig. Honestly, I would have thought that they would have done a little work to the exhaust ports, and I'm horrified by the evenness of the valves. What I'm more worried about than the one valve being in crooked (which SHOULDN'T be the case, since they're all parallel it wouldn't be tough to get them straight) is that one of them got bent in shipping, and now it's stuck in there. Still, with the quality of work from the guy running the seat cutter, it's not hard to imagine that he drilled and reamed the guides with a 3/8" craftsman hand drill.

I would raise STINK if I were you. Don't wait on shipping anything else - take some clearer pictures and show them to VPD & explain that you're returning the head and you want ALL your money back.

I'm seeing shades of Ian on the day he opened his box from Converse Engineering... "Whaaa?"

----------------------

So, after you return the head and get your money back, do you want to play with a couple of Dale's OHV heads & port up our own? We have some T5 adapter plates being built right now for both B18/20 and B21/23/230, and we can deal with the clutch fork when we need to. EVERYTHING you were supposed to get from VPD can be replicated in far higher quality for about half the money.

Daaaaayum.

I'll definitely join you in a scotch.

I'll agree with Matt - raise hell and don't settle for crap!

and random thought - if the case is that the valve got bent in shipping, even if it gets bent back - could that not be a weakness in the metal/whatever material it is now?

Just a thought.

Damn you Matt I had almost forgotten about those feelings

Craig that really SUCKS, I agree, take some better pictures and do not accept these. It looks as if the work was done by a high school auto class.

No rage, just disappointment and a crappy digital garage camera with virtually no MACRO abilities.



Ya, I payed for the port work...I guess that's all you get. I'm thinking that polishing them up would only matter at high RPM and it likely not worth the effort. As for the valve, it is the top of the stem that is ground at an angle to the valve (it isn't perpendicular), the valve itself is not bent from what I can see.



I completly agree and we did have a little chat on the phone this morning. There is no way I'm sending the head back and there was no way that VPD thinks anything is wrong. Sending the head back would mean 2 more years of waiting. I'm sure I can get the valve fixed.




Instead of mapping the ports as we were going to do, I'm going to suggest that, if Dale is willing, I can take one of his cores home and replicate the port work and then we can copy what was done. If that doesn't work, then at the very least I'll replicate the work when I do my B18 for sale.

Damn man, that sucks.

I would post that on every volvo related board out there. It wont get your money back but it might make people think twice before using him.

Is it the guide that has been reamed out on an angle causing it to sit that way?

does the Valve sit flush and tight all the way around the seat?

Its definatly going to wear out some lifters if you run it like that.

Sorry to see that. I would post this else where, just as a warning (mentioning of course the 2 year wait)

Jordan

I also agree with this, my "rant" about the Converse kit on my website has cost them at least 50 conversion kists over the years (I do have the email canversation to back that). At $1000 per kit I do feel that justice has been done

I think I was among the first to hear about this and now that I see pictures, I can't believe a guy with the apparent reputation that Parker has, would even think about letting this out of his shop. That's pathetic. I agree with Matt. I'm not sure I'd wait to get the rest of your stuff.

I'd send Mr Parker a strongly worded email and describe in detail how you plan to make known, with pictures (we'll take some pictures with my camera), on every discussion board and mailing list out there, what kind of work he does and how much money he charges for this work. Demand at least a partial refund to compensate you for having to take the head to another shop to get all the issues corrected. That looks like it was done by a grade 9 auto mechanics class...

Let's see...there's the Brickboard...about 4 different RWD forums there, TurboBricks, Swedish Classics and a bunch of Yahoo lists. I think the damage could be significant. It needs to be carefully worded though as the man is a lawyer and, not that he could do a lot, might try to make your life difficult.

Unbelievable....

So I was stewing in my hate tonight and I figured it couldn't hurt to pull the valves out (I'll take the crooked one in for a touch-up tomorrow) and found the port work. The valves have a 3 angle grind, were not lapped (I was always taught to hand lap valves, but that was back in the stone age, I'm guessing that it is no longer the thing to do?) There is lots of work on the port under the valve, but not much at the far end.

Here are the shots (almost feeling better).

Valves out.




Not much left in behind the valve - note work to the intake port (he said he was going to concentrate on the exhaust, I guess my intakes were bad).



The shape of the exhaust port is hard to get a photo of, but between the last shot and this one you'll get the idea. The full valve seat is left on the short side radius side and the long radius side is mostly removed much like the intake.



Here's the final shot (I've got lots more, but this should suffice for anyone that has a B20 to play with). Again, the intake work is extensive and you can see the alteration of the width of the exhaust seat.



Thanks to all for the support. I'm going to get this damn engine put together, have some fun and stop worring about chasing silly people with crappy customer service. After 2+ years, I'm tired and just want to drive the Canuck for a change. I will be surfacing the head with a file and getting it all cleaned up when I get the brakes etc in the car.

Craig

Yeah, those last pictures are much more confidence inspiring.

If anyone and I mean anyone else said this I'd tell them they were crazy. For some reason it doesn't sound that strange coming from you...

However, I do know where there is a mill that might be of some assistance...

Thanks for the vote of confidence. I've spent the odd hour doing this sort of work and some of those skills are not dulled that much by my current position. I'm only doing the intake/exhaust side and the valve cover mounting surface (there is one small dent on the bottom of the heat that will have to be touched up). I'll get that done when I take it out to the garage to be polished on the outside. At least it will look good.