We have one W5 head that keeps giving us fits. They are the supposedly "good" castings, and have been CNC ported. We got around 50 passes on the first engine when we started having water issues. Pulled the engine apart, found a leak in one of the intake ports. We sent the head off and had it repaired (epoxy of some sorts), re-did the short block, and probably had around 100 passes on it before it failed again (epoxy came out). When it went this time it flooded the engine so bad it stalled when turning on the return road. Can this head be fixed so that we can enjoy this engine at least for a little bit? We actually left a little on the table hp wise so we would have a nice, powerful, but trouble free engine that we could enjoy for many years. If we'd known we were going to be pulling it every year we would have set it on kill! It's on my dads engine and the parts are in SoDak so anywhere close to their would be a +, but we just want it DONE so that it lasts!

Harrys in sewer city ?

How about Jeff at Modern Cylinder head or Shady Dell or Ryan in N.Y.?I know several shops out here on the west coast but Jeff is nearer to the car

Jeff mentioned above has beeen having health problems.

I would give Radar a call, he is close.

Roger "Radar' Lechtenberg at R@J performance ( 319)-988-3595 , 4611 South Hudson Road Cedar Falls iowa 50613,
He has been at it a long time and knows Mopar heads.

Think we'll try giving him a call eh100. Who's "Harry's" Big?

Another real nice guy that is a little closer is Larry Demers. He has a nice shop in the back of the NAPA store he owns in Carrol IA. I just don't know how familiar he is with the "W" head. If the sprint car guys run them I'm sure he has seen them.

Don't know if he will be in the shop tomarrow. He runs a TOP sportsman car and his son runs SC pipe rack. Both were racing at Topeka this weekend.

how do they go anout fixing an aluminum head???? epoxy luike said above?? or do they do a special type of elding than port the cylinder back out'.

Maybe you can fix it yourself. If they were using Epoxy to try and fix it a product called Alumiweld may be much better. It needs no flux or argon to make it work. The average joe can do it with a torch. It melts at about 750*

BUT!! So far Ive only done minor tests with it with positive results.

Now the Bad news, Its sold at Harbor Freight.

Im going to try and use it on a Yamaha Rhino aluminum radiator that was repaired at a Radiator shop that failed with some kind of goo Epoxy.

After my failures with, sodder, JB weld, and my Mig welder with aluminum wire. My tests with the alumiweld show very promising results, IMO

It may be the fix for you also. It should be Waay better then any Epoxy job from my test results.

I was in topeka with Larry Demers this weekend and he has done a truck load of head repair. 712-792-4381

Thanks for the info eh100 and good to hear a recommendation from you too Richard. If it wasn't so damn fun to have a 9 sec small block running exhaust we'd given up by now.

Jay...I took a set of Eddy Victors to Radar for Lonemopar...One was banged up pretty bad!! He had them done up nicely!!

Jeff Has been doing great.Very busy.Is the leak from a hole or a crack?And how close to the seat is it.
Take a pic and post if you could

Sent my dad the contact info for Larry. Talked to him this am so hoping for the best.

.....of course! Leak in a very tricky spot on the short side. We're sending him a "test" head to look at and cut apart if need be. May have to repair from the back side. In the mean time we just bought another set of W5's so we'll get those done up and hopefully make a pass or two yet this fall. Guess we're in this deep... what's a little more.

W5 still at the hospital. We're in no hurry. We sent him some cut up sections of a W-5 head and it's been determined that he is going to cut a section out of the deck and weld up the short turn from the backside, psi test it, and then repair and resurface the deck. Meanwhile the engine is being assembled with our "new" set of W5s.

You could send it up to Angie at Mopar Engines West in Nor Cal, I had a piston / rod assembly chew one up pretty good last year and after she worked her magic you would never know.

Number and email if interested maybe send a picture and get a quote? if so tell her Keith set you.

1-510-796-4313 or angie-moparengines@sbcglobal.net

Head is already in capable hands Keith, but thanks for chiming in on a suggested repair facility.

For future reference:

Midwest Cylinder Heads
Nevada, Iowa

Lots of performance machine shops use them.

http://midwestcylinderhead.com/

I've used them for the head repair and then Harry Heads, Sioux City,IA for the final porting/epoxy work.