Ok I've got the dreaded castech heads, I've seen all over the net that once these crack it's time to throw away. Has anyone managed to weld these up, I'm pretty good with the Tig welder, if I can get access surely these are weldable ??
Over here in the UK Ls heads aren't growing on trees unfortunately

 

If you look on ebay (US) you'll see 706 heads for sale that have been "upgraded" by tig welding around the effected head bolt holes where the castech heads are prone to crack. Maybe it will give you an idea where to weld.

 

Thanks for that info at least it's something to consider whilst I build the motor, the pictures I have seen they appear to crack in the same places, perhaps better to reinforce before they actually crack?

 

Being aluminum, I would think a well-placed weld should fix a cracked head

 

I think trying to weld up and strengthen a non cracked head would produce a large chance for failure.

 

Just JB weld it

 

The answer that never goes out of fashion

 

I'm not sure of the procedure but the e-bay seller/machine shop listing says (sorry for the copy/paste caps)


He has a really good feedback 99.2% with 29,487 transactions.

 

Thanks for the link,appreciate the advice guys👍

 

Your not supposed to post NON SPONSOR links as there are sponsors that sale heads...

If he has a picture of the modification, you can copy it and paste it here along with the name of the seller.

FWIW, have seens some these heads and while the welds are good the valve job sucks. In alot of cases, the valves should have been replaced. The margine to grind on the factory valves is very thin to begin with.

 

The pic in the link ad above shows 317 heads.
In case you're interested someone on LS1tech has a set for 317 heads for 200.00 that'll bump down the compression but can be reworked.
https://ls1tech.com/forums/market/1950773

 

reading between the lines I gather you have not confirmed that these heads are actually cracked or damaged for unserviceable or that there is anything actually wrong with them right? The recall was a very very long time ago and I would think that after so many years that if a cylinder head was from a bad batch that was prone to cracking it probably would have crack ed or leaked already not every single castec Head cracks it's just that the heads that do crack for people that like to take pictures for the internet and b**** about it often have the castec stamp That's it, I have a set of stock 706 castec from a 2002 4.8L on my homemade iron 6.2L and they have well over a quarter million unfriendly cumulative miles on them and they haven't cracked and I beat the s*** out of them everyday I actually just finished a double header weekend of autocross in the St Louis heat and humidity and they don't leak they work great they got so hot even that they burned the high temp engine paint off that I tried to put on them to pretty them up but they sure didn't leak, just put the 706 heads on your engine with new valve stem seals and new valve springs and be done with it

 

Ok Judy I edited out the link...

Uh Oh looks like you're the one with a non sponsor link in your quote