I was a machinist for 10 years, then switched careers. I built about a half dozen engines after my career change for friends just as a hobby. One of them was Mike Ritz's engine for his Team Starfish Barracuda. He got heads done by MM. They were atrocious. He paid for fully assembled heads and when I pulled them out of the bags, piles of metal chips from the porting fell out of the water jacket. After I had Mike take them to get cleaned, we found out that not only was the core shift so bad, the heads were unusable, but also that half of the exhaust flange bolt holes weren't tapped.

What kind of a shop doesn't check over a set of new heads before starting work on them? The same kind of shop that doesn't clean the heads after porting, they just slap them together.

The pushrods they made were bent right out of the box and both Eric and Mike said they were fine to run. I only wish that I had a digital camera back then. I've had quite a few sets of pushrods made by Smith Brothers and none of them were bent coming out of the box.

The guy that answered the phone, Eric, I think his name was. He was a complete d!ck every single time I talked to him.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I wouldn't let them work on my lawnmower engine.