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I picked up these 317 heads to run on my turbo 5.7 and realised there is a crack that looks like was from the casting process. Its in the oil passage going towards the bolt hole. Has anyone seen this before? Thinking about welding it, but don't want to deal with machining the face to be sure it's true and flat. Suggestions? Comments?
I ended up welding the head last night. debated if I wanted to take it to a machine shop to have it done and decided I didnt want to spend the money when I could do it myself. Ended up being pretty easy and only took me about a half hour.
This is the split
I then ground down the area with a die grinder till the crack was no longer visible. wasn't too deep.
After welding I knocked the weld down pretty close and then finished it off with a sanding block. Not perfect but should do the job and be just fine.
This is the same area on the other head for reference.
thanks. Ordered a machinist straight edge to check flatness just because I picked these heads up second hand and want to verify flatness before I reassemble and regret it. I'll check my skills on flatness of the weld area too. Will be a good test to the ability of sanding some heads with a simple block.
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317 heads casting crack issue 
