Crazy & strange damage on Edelbrock heads- need help

Posted By: chrisnben

Crazy & strange damage on Edelbrock heads- need help - 04/06/14 02:16 PM

Need an opinion or two here on what to do. I recently bought a 440 with these heads. I wanted to freshen up the bearings and go with a smaller cam, so I disassembled it to find the Eddy heads have all these pock marks on them.

There is damage to every cylinder on each head. It appears it happened before and was rebuilt with new pistons, etc. because there is no damage at all to any piston or wall- just the heads.

Anyway, look at these pics and tell me if there is any hope of repairing the pock marks to the aluminum. Pretty crazy that ALL the cylinders have the damage. Or is this in the castings? Is it a concern at all? Hot spots, etc.?

Attached picture 8103290-eddy1.jpg

Posted By: 440W8 Duster

Re: Crazy & strange damage on Edelbrock heads- need help - 04/06/14 02:33 PM

motor must of let go at one time and debris must of went thru the engine but I wouldn't worry about it. Maybe if there is any sharp edges on the heads just clean them up.

Posted By: chrisnben

Re: Crazy & strange damage on Edelbrock heads- need help - 04/06/14 02:51 PM

ok, sure- but how does debris get IN each cylinder? It would have to be something from the intake- like pouring BB's down the carb throat.

Posted By: B G Racing

Re: Crazy & strange damage on Edelbrock heads- need help - 04/06/14 03:22 PM

If that's the worst,it maybe an easy repair.

Posted By: MR_P_BODY

Re: Crazy & strange damage on Edelbrock heads- need help - 04/06/14 03:25 PM

If it blew a piston parts will go back out the intake
valve when open and can jump over to other cyl...
thats common when a engine lets go for some reason

Posted By: chrisnben

Re: Crazy & strange damage on Edelbrock heads- need help - 04/06/14 03:49 PM

I think that's exactly what had happened! Strange that the block walls didn't get damaged.
Any suggestions on a repair?

Posted By: tubtar

Re: Crazy & strange damage on Edelbrock heads- need help - 04/06/14 03:56 PM

Looks to be what my Navy friends would refer to as FOD *
Foreign object damage. *
You'd be amazed at how junk can migrate from cylinder to cylinder , but hitting them all means there were many pieces floating around.
If there are no sharp edges , my next worry would be stress risers where a crack would start.
A little delicate work with a cartridge roll and have them inspected for cracks. I got a kit years back that was three aerosol cans.....cleaner , dye and developer that worked really well on aluminum......but you'll want to get them as clean as possible first.

Posted By: gdonovan

Re: Crazy & strange damage on Edelbrock heads- need help - 04/06/14 04:06 PM

Quote:

If it blew a piston parts will go back out the intake
valve when open and can jump over to other cyl...
thats common when a engine lets go for some reason

Happened to me decades ago.

Car started skipping on the way home and by the time I got there was hardly running. Pulled out the plugs and found four broken. Pulled the heads and there was dime sized pieces of shrapnel in the holes and evidence that it was jumping from hole to hole and leaving pock marks.

Wrote it off to someone screwing with me and put the car back together and drove it.

Weeks later took apart the TQ to do some jetting and found that the sheetmetal baffle on the secondary side of the carb was MISSING.

The lightbulb went off over my head. The baffle had fatigued, broke in two and fell into the intake in two pieces and the motor ate it.

The same TQ is still missing the baffle till this day and works great. I joke the more parts I take off this carb the fast the car keeps going..

Posted By: MR_P_BODY

Re: Crazy & strange damage on Edelbrock heads- need help - 04/06/14 04:07 PM

Quote:

I think that's exactly what had happened! Strange that the block walls didn't get damaged.
Any suggestions on a repair?

I'm guessing you have been running the engine with
no problems... if so just knock off any sharp edges
EDIT
it was probably bored for the new pistons instead of
fixing one or a couple of bores

Posted By: B G Racing

Re: Crazy & strange damage on Edelbrock heads- need help - 04/06/14 04:08 PM

Quote:

I think that's exactly what had happened! Strange that the block walls didn't get damaged.
Any suggestions on a repair?

Clean them up,weld any depressions and dress the surface.

Posted By: chrisnben

Re: Crazy & strange damage on Edelbrock heads- need help - 04/06/14 04:36 PM

Quote:

Quote:

I think that's exactly what had happened! Strange that the block walls didn't get damaged.
Any suggestions on a repair?

I'm guessing you have been running the engine with
no problems... if so just knock off any sharp edges
EDIT
it was probably bored for the new pistons instead of
fixing one or a couple of bores

Funny thing is, I used to own this engine before- bought it back- and it is still 30 over with nice hatch crossing.

Thanks all! I'll look into welding these up and blending. The engine was running great, but I'm concerned over time, those marks might 'open up' and crack.

Posted By: MR_P_BODY

Re: Crazy & strange damage on Edelbrock heads- need help - 04/06/14 04:46 PM

Quote:

Quote:

Quote:

I think that's exactly what had happened! Strange that the block walls didn't get damaged.
Any suggestions on a repair?

I'm guessing you have been running the engine with
no problems... if so just knock off any sharp edges
EDIT
it was probably bored for the new pistons instead of
fixing one or a couple of bores

Funny thing is, I used to own this engine before- bought it back- and it is still 30 over with nice hatch crossing.

Thanks all! I'll look into welding these up and blending. The engine was running great, but I'm concerned over time, those marks might 'open up' and crack.

I wouldnt even waste time or money to weld up anything
but I would use a small dia tootsie roll and blend
out the sharp edges.... JMO
EDIT
if you look you can see where the person already ground
off spots... just check for any he might have missed
and run them

Posted By: B G Racing

Re: Crazy & strange damage on Edelbrock heads- need help - 04/06/14 05:11 PM

Depending on how much the heads have been cut,I would seriously consider welding since some of those look pretty deep and if there is material embedded in the head it might cause a hotspot and burn through if the temp gets too high.I would take them to a capable shop since you have them off and get a estimate on the repair.I'am thinking for a few hundered bucks you can have them welded and a .005 cut taken off and they would look as good as new.There is a water jacket behind that area.

Posted By: pittsburghracer

Re: Crazy & strange damage on Edelbrock heads- need help - 04/06/14 05:13 PM

That's minor damage but like other have said, Smooth out the edges. I charged a guy on a budget 50 dollars to fix this head and its out running low 11's every weekend. Its a chevy procomp head and he didn't want to invest a fortune fixing them so we got him back out racing.

Posted By: chrisnben

Re: Crazy & strange damage on Edelbrock heads- need help - 04/06/14 05:21 PM

Quote:

That's minor damage but like other have said, Smooth out the edges. I charged a guy on a budget 50 dollars to fix this head and its out running low 11's every weekend. Its a chevy procomp head and he didn't want to invest a fortune fixing them so we got him back out racing.

what would be a ballpark cost to repair these? All (8) look just like the original pic I posted- all in the same area.
These heads have been heavily ported, milled, etc. so there's some bucks in them. They flow nicely over 300cfm.

Posted By: roadhazard

Re: Crazy & strange damage on Edelbrock heads- need help - 04/06/14 05:58 PM

If you are planning to weld the head you better figure in a valve job

I'd leave well enough alone

Posted By: MrFoFody

Re: Crazy & strange damage on Edelbrock heads- need help - 04/07/14 12:20 AM

Those heads have a fairly thick deck so couldn't the majority of the damaged be removed by simply decking them?

Posted By: chrisnben

Re: Crazy & strange damage on Edelbrock heads- need help - 04/07/14 12:34 AM

the damage is in the combustion chamber- not the deck surface.

Posted By: Sport440

Re: Crazy & strange damage on Edelbrock heads- need help - 04/07/14 01:40 AM

Quote:

the damage is in the combustion chamber- not the deck surface.

The damage is on the deck part of the combustion chamber too, as shown in the pic. Those could be cleaned up some by decking .020 or so. If the heads have Never been shaved you could even go .050 like almost everybody did when those Eddys first came out.

As already stated when a piston blows and gets broken to pieces, guess what, that cylinder now becomes part of the intake track and bits and pieces get sucked into the rest of the engine. The piston is no longer there to create the low pressure to draw on the intake track, so the flow gets reversed when that intake valve opens.

What should you do? You could do nothing and be fine. At minimum, I would clean up any rough edges witch someone else seems to have already done. You can also find your biggest deepest divot and see if it warrents a weld up.

Posted By: pittsburghracer

Re: Crazy & strange damage on Edelbrock heads- need help - 04/07/14 02:57 AM

The first step if you don't totally know the history of the heads is to see if the valve seats are banged up. If the person selling them to you ran the engine after it happened they must have taken them apart, done a valve job, and reassembled. You or a local shop can dress them up. If someone walked in my shop with two heads looking like that and I didn't have to pull them apart I would charge around 100 dollars if they did the after work cleaning. You can do it yourself for less than 20 dollars.