I agree with Scott. If Summit sold you these, thats where I'd start. Also-Might want to get Tony Mamos' 2 cents. Even though these ARE NOT HIS HEADS, OR DOINGS, he probably has more experience with TFS heads than most anyone else. You could ask him his take on this, and see if he has ever seen a set like this come thru his doors. Just sayin'...

 

I’ve reached out to summit- call trickflow which is where I’m at. I appreciate everyone’s responses. These will go onto a shelf for now figure out a new set of heads. As I just took cover off block starting to flash rust with coats of marvel lol got that cleaned up yesterday. But here’s all the pistons no PTV contact at all.

 

We’d like to clarify a few things for the OP and folks trying to help.

The valves are different lengths brand new. The difference is made up in the valve job machining depth, which sets the depth of the valve in the head and ensures both proper rocker geometry, as well as good valve job blend into the bowl and chamber. These heads did not require lash caps.

There still seems to be confusion about the seat wear, and whether there were seat issues when these heads left our factory. Our conclusion was that there was not an issue with our manufacturing process or valve seat issues when these left our factory.

When we install seats, the heads are heated and seats are cooled with liquid nitrogen before being pressed in. This is necessary due to the significant interference fit. They are 100% gauged to verify the seats are full seated immediately after installation. They are 100% inspected again later prior to the valve job to ensure the seats are fully seated.

If there was evidence of a valve job concentricity problem, or the seat had moved in the head (either lifted, or dropped into the head after valve jobbing because it wasn’t fully seated when installed), we would have absolutely warrantied the heads without question. But that’s not the failure mode we observed here. The seats didn’t sink into the head. Instead, the exhaust valves sunk into the seats, and the seats mushroomed out and around the valve heads.

Our seats are heat treated – meaning, they are hardened, which ensures good wear properties and durability. If there were issues with other customer's heads, we would likely quickly conclude we have could have a heat treatment process issue on an entire batch of seats from our supplier, however that is also not the case.

The accelerated wear and deformation of the exhaust seats shows that the seats have been overheated to 1600-1700° F for several hours, which annealed the seats. This means they have lost their heat treatment and they are no longer hardened, instead they are very soft, malleable, and easily deformed. In this material state, the seats will no longer have good wear resistance, instead they will wear and deform very easily.

To illustrate what we mean, take a hammer and a file to a hardened steel drill bit (careful, it will be so hard that it is brittle and can shatter), and again to a regular nail. The hardness of the drill bit is what makes it both resistant to wear, and also resistant to deformation. But the nail will dent, bend, and file easily in comparison because it's not heat treated, it's soft. That’s what’s happened to your exhaust seats. Once they were annealed and lost their heat treatment, the valve closing against the seat hammered the seat and valve sunk into the head gradually as the seat deformed a little with every valve closing event.

This also means that the exhaust seats cannot be re-valve jobbed. The heads need to have new exhaust seats installed.

Again, elevated exhaust temps high enough to anneal and soften the exhaust seats is an indication of a significant cam timing or tuning issue. With thousands of heads and exhaust seats sold per year, we have only seen this level of seat deformation a few times over many years. It is more common on a boosted application, but it is possible on an NA build. It’s an indication of a cam timing, fueling, or ignition problem and never considered normal.

Our dyno technician is out of the office for the holidays, but we will review your logs with engineering once everyone is back in the office.

The bent valves, worn guides, and softened/hammered seats were all reasons we concluded there were significant problems outside of our control, and also why it was a little pricy to repair the heads. They needed new seats, guides, and valves.

It is also clear that we could have communicated our inspection results to you more clearly, perhaps with an inspection report with our measurements, observations, and a detailed estimate rather than just the verbal over the phone. We are always working to improve our processes and want to provide the best customer service we can, even when things don't go as planned for our customers.

 

Glad Trickflow cares enough to explain things further. Looks like initial start up is very important to get correct.

 

So is initial Valve sealing as to not cause no excessive EGTs either? Same tune little adjustment for cam injectors timing dot to dot on current motor 243 heads no problems. Who would run a motor like **** for 7 hours? I’m just lost. Who here is good with reading data logs. Because I keep looking back to see where KR or STFTS were so way out of whack as to cause that issue in my tune. Engine Build goes wrong whats the builder lean to the parts or the tune the parts broke let’s say it’s the tune. I would just close this thread at this point thanks

 

I don’t know ‘nothing about nothing’ but I know I wouldn’t use google AI to answer that question!

 

lol I’m just saying reading deep into the forums on google about high egts and causes that’s definitely one of them. What EGTS would you see your headers start glowing hot? So yeah it must of happened early into the break in and my drivability wasn’t bad obviously as It would of been pulled crazy they were this bad and still going

 

Would think if your exhaust valve was leaking due to a bad seat during ignition it would look more like this, the hot gases would be forced into a small area burning the valve. If the whole seat was bad from the get go you wouldn’t have compression.
Trickflow came to their conclusions because the whole seat was mushroomed, because it was annealed from the high exhaust gas temperature.

 

Oh ok so It would be on the valve face itself? Then possibly break off. My question is so how would I be able to see in a log high EGTs without an egt sensor? Do you know what temp it would show the headers glowing? I mean trickflow is right in the sense let’s figure out what caused it but obviously after all these posts no one really had any explanations besides them. Bad timing. Besides timing what other mechanical aspects could cause the temps? I’ve read blocked exhaust. Lean or rich air fuels. My thing is this was immediate at least I think so. Could the rockers of side loaded the valves not causing them to seal and cause the issue?

 

Did you have stainless headers? Post a picture of how they look they should have multiple colors on them that will show the heat range they ran at.

 

Just steel Headman 69690 ls headers

 

Not sure if they would show anything it’s possible though, even plain steel shows the color changes with heat. Did you happen to coat them with a high heat paint like Hedman recommends?

 

Wrong cam timing can cause the high egt's too. I'm working on a Ferrari 550 right now that had a partially melted cat because the cams on one side were timed wrong. Sent the egt's through the roof, but car drove ok. In a crazy destructive situation like this, you have to examine everything.

 

I agree with TFS here, which is why I asked if this was a boost build. Sucks, but it happens. Sometimes things in this hobby turn around and bite us. I preach often about the value of a good tune…priceless.

 

Yeah Hopefully the Dyno guy can maybe shed some light on what happened with the tune so this doesn’t happen again like they said if it was the timing in the tune.

 

I see you posted the last tune/log.
Did you get the initial tune files when the tuner did his work?

 

Not to keep beating a dead horse here but wouldn't those excessive temps cause the valves to become tuliped therefore causing the diameters and even the lengths to be affected?

 

I figured if the seats got that hot then the valves would be fubar too and easily seen as too much EGT.

 

I mean the valves are bent I guess so maybe that’s what the heat did to them? As in the tune there is my stock file the original startup file couple back and forth and a ton of logs. How much do you guys see timing needs to be adjusted on a startup file for a small lift camshaft?

 

I'm no tuner but I'm 100% certain that the engine would have started and ran on the stock tune. You definetly should degree the cam and verify your valve events on the rebuild.