Guys,

It has come to our attention that some time ago we received a batch of valves from our supplier (8 mm LS1) that the tips were not hardened to the proper Rockwell scale. Over the course of time this will lead to the tip eroding ultimately creating lash (play) between the worn tips and the rocker arms. As this situation progress’s further, the audible ticking noise will get louder and the wear will accelerate faster from the pounding of the rocker arm on the valve tip. If left completely unchecked, it could cause a valve to drop (worst case scenario) but the clacking noise would be very audible if the damage had progressed that far and it’s extremely unlikely anyone would drive it that long without noticing. Take note that depending on how loud your exhaust is and how far the problem may have progressed, you may or may not hear it from the driver’s seat. I would encourage anyone who’s reading this and has purchased our heads to listen to the engine running with the hood open. Note also that some cams with more aggressive lobes (XER, LSK, etc.) will always have more valve train noise than a stock cam….what you are listening for is abnormally loud clacking and a noise that seems more isolated to possibly only one or a few bad valves.

The good news is we have shipped over 1000 sets of LS1’s in the last year or two and this problem currently represents approximately 1% of our sold and delivered units, however, till we get a better handle from our supplier on how many valves they may have sent us that way (which we are working on), we felt it best to be upfront with you guys in the event we can help prevent any serious engine damage by alerting you to a potential problem ahead of time. Understand that this letter isn’t meant to induce panic and hopefully you never experience any issues (needless to say it would have been far easier to bury our head in the sand in the hopes this is very isolated and goes away), but management felt it would be best handled by being pro-active and sharing the information with all of you who stepped up and bought our product (regardless of whether you may or may not have some issues now or down the road that need to be corrected). We are also aware that one of our competitors recently reported something similar regarding tip wear, but in our situation its not related to geometry and the few people that have had an issue had both stock and aftermarket roller rockers. These are simply coincidental and un-related occurrences.

In the event you are experiencing any issues please contact AFR directly…. note that in one case the damage took as long as 8000 miles to be pronounced enough for our customer to look into the abnormal tapping noises emitting from the valve train. A few happened much faster than that which IMO is more likely. Currently, we are handling each situation on a case by case basis and will continue to speak with our manufacturer (who also builds valves for OEM applications) to try and get a better idea of how much help they will be willing to provide.

As I learn more I will be passing it along to you….in the meantime I advise you give the valve train a quick listen and if you’ve got the time, tools, and ability, removing both valve covers to take a closer look at your valve stem tips certainly wouldn’t be a bad idea. A bad one will have an arc ground in it from the rocker wiping across it.

We hope this info helps some of you to avoid any potential problems….

Feel free to contact myself or anyone in the Sales/Technical Dept. by dialing (661)257-8124
Please leave a message in the event you can’t reach a live person and someone will get back to you shortly

Sincerely,
Tony Mamo
AFR Sales / R&D Mgr.

 

Thanks for the heads up Tony. Pro-active notification is better than as you say "burying your head in the sand" as some others have done and only takes a few minutes. I for one appreciate the customer concern.

 

I'm not an AFR owner but this is top-notch service. It is rare you find a company like this anymore.

 

Tony:

Email sent.

 

its always great to see a sponsor stepping up like this. it makes me feel very confidant in buying your product in the future

 

Thanks for the heads up Tony.

 

I was making arrangements to have my 205's bolted on tomorrow. Glad I checked the forum!!

Procrastination can pay at times!!

 

Is there a time frame when these valves were used?

do some dealers buy your heads bare and install their valves and springs?

 

thanks for the notice tony. i hope this doesnt include my heads though

 

Thanx for the heads up. Much appreciated.

 

This incident has not changed my intention to use AFRs. The question I have now is how to identify the bad valves. I assume a hardness check can be run?

Best of luck in getting this solved quickly, and with the least damage to everyone concerned.

 

You are top notch!

 

Guys,

Thanks for all the postitve comments and being understanding of the situation.

We were on the fence whether to post this publically only because we didnt want to needlessly worry alot of people under the assumption this stays a very isolated situation, BUT, the reality is we still dont know how many valves may have been effected so in the end we decided it was more prudent to share the info with everyone in the event there are more than just a few isolated cases (which at this point still seems unlikely).

Any heads that we hadnt shipped as of today are being held at the factory....about 30 sets I believe and all of those heads will be gone thru to check the valves for proper heat treat (rockwell) on the tips. Any heads you guys have received but haven't bolted on you can either send us back the heads or send us the valves to check....either way we will get you handled. Make sure you arrange with either myself or any of our Rep's how your going to handle the situation and make sure you get an RMA # (VERY important for this to go smoothly and quickly not to mention). If you already have heads on your vehicle do NOT loose any sleep over....based on available data currently, chances are still extremely low that you are going to have a problem. Do the math guys....over 1000 sets shipped in the last year...less than 10 problems that we know of, BUT, seeing as this issue takes time to show itself, thats the reason we armed all of you with the information. By next month we may have 50 problems but were hoping thats NOT the case (still only 5% if so!).

I would say that most problems would show themselves early....if you have 5000 or more miles on your heads the chances you have a few soft valve tips are very remote, but as I mentioned, one of our customers bought them over a year ago and had 8000 miles since the headswap.

I will be posting pictures next week of some problem valves so any of you that have the time and ability to check their own valvetrain will be that much better prepared to evaluate how everything looks....

Again guys....youve all been great and I appreciate the support. Hopefully this thread fades into the sunset in a month or two and its all a big false alarm which I aplogize for. But know that even if you guys have a problem a YEAR from now....dont worry....AFR will be there for you....just contact myself or one of our Rep's and we will figure out the best way to get you handled.

Look for more info and an update on this situation next week....

Sincerely,
Tony Mamo

 

Thanks for informing us. Not too many companies would look out like that for its customers. Do you know about when the problem started...can you define "some time ago"? I installed my 205's on 4/10/06 and have about 12K miles on them. I don't seem to have a problem but I guess I'll have it checked out next spring.

 

We were informed of this yesterday. I am quite happy to see AFR standup and take care of this. If anyone has any of these problems you can let us know if you are local I will be glad to work with AFR on resolving these issues. I have used and will continue to only use AFR's for our aftermarket solutions.

- Matt

 

Very respectable from all involved parties. That's why AFR has a great reputation:

Performance + excellent customer service = the best

 

I agree, it is an excellent business practice to come forward with any information that may effect the consumer or their product in a negative way. Thats a jesture you cannot buy with money....

I just did a sound check and all is fine, sounds the same from when I picked up the car from ECS 10/8/05 (24k miles ago) Too bad, it would have been an excuse to pull the heads and have it massaged for even more power and compression.

 

What kind of things should we look for when inspecting the valve tips? I planned on doing this soon anyway as I have a very unusual engine noise under load that I was fairly worried about. I'm pretty sure its in the valvetrain, I still plan on pulling all my springs and checking those, along with the rockers for any unusual wear or visual problems.

Thanks - Josh

 

what about guys with used heads, the heads i bought have around 10k miles on them and are in my garage, should i have the shop check the valves before installation?

 

Tony -

Thanks for the heads up. Can not say enough good things about you and AFR.

JG853