I realize there are probably only about 4 people here that have any interest in this, but it's winter, and a little slow, so it's a small contribution......

It's pretty common for 40+ year old heads to have visited the machine shop before they find their way to me, and I'd say these had been there at least twice before.
They weren't really great candidates for HP heads on a stroker build...... But they are T/A heads..... Going on a real T/A car.
I don't have any idea if these are the original heads for the car or not.

At one point they had ex seats installed. Unfortunately they used the wrong size insert(too big), and sunk them a tad to boot.
They are big enough on the OD that the intake valve actually sits on the ex seat insert where the two valves are close to each other, so when you sink the ex seat, you then have to sink the intake valve as well.
Notice the "high flow" step from using the incorrect seat ring.
Real nice guide work too.

What you can't really see all that well in the pic of the ex seat is why they sunk the ex seat ring.
It's so they could peen the edge that's left by sinking it, over the top of the seat to help keep it from falling out.

Call me old school, but I prefer to just use the correct amount of press to keep the seats from falling out.

So, the inserts they used were 1.750 OD, .0625" bigger than the "normal" insert, and they went a little deeper than preferred.
If you make the cut big enough, and deep enough..... There is water to be found.

Since the seats weren't pounded out, and there wasn't coolant coming out where it shouldn't be, I figured it would be wise to not tamper with what isn't a functional problem.

I'd blend as best I could, and they are what they are.

I did a bowl blend, rolled the short turns, and smoothed out the pinch area....., along with new guides, valve job, surfaced, cut for dual springs and posi seals.

looks good concidering the mess you were handed.

I find it very interesting.

Although super rare less then 2 weeks ago a set of nos t/a head castings and nib rockers sold for $1600. A very good buy for someone.

Ive had some heads that like in your pics show the small bit of casting chipped out of the head bolt hole, can you speculate on the cause of that?

Are you going to flow them? Just wondering what they would show with the bit of cleanup work you have done.

Well Fast you certainly made them look better. I'm sure they will perform much better. Nice work.

I didn't bother to flow them "before", but I did flow them after the rework.

Ootb 2.02 J heads can flow between 195 and 215.
In fact, I've seen two heads off the same motor do just that.
One head flowed around 195, the other close to 215.
I rebuilt a nice set of stock untouched fairly low mileage T/A heads a few years ago and those flowed right about 200 as removed from the motor.

This set is right about 230@.500 lift(numbers are at work).
There was some core shift in these heads, so I didn't go after the intake short turns or open the bowls all that much....... Since they're a little pricier to replace than a std J head.

Great info, thanks!

Looking good! It's amazing what passes for machine work for some people. Great job at straightening that mess out.

For comparison, if you use the correct seat insert, there is very little blending required.

Since the transition from the seat into the bowl has more of the correct shape, and there is less material removal needed to get a smooth transition from the seat into the bowl, you get about 10cfm additional flow, with about 1/2 the effort.

Nice work, thanks for sharing.

I wish I'd taken pics of some of the old chevy sb "double hump" or "camel hump" heads I had come in the shop when I did machine work. I'm sure Dwayne has seen a bunch of those too. Most guys think those heads are the best thing since sliced bread, but every set of them has already been gone through and "upgraded" 15 times since they were new. They'd get real upset when I asked them what color they wanted me to paint their new doorstops?

Real nice work 👍🏻

Very nice work!!

If I had one thing I would change in my career (if you can call it that) I would have paid more attention in metal shop and would have become a machinist... I am amazed at the things a good shop can accomplish.

I just picked up a SBC yesterday with the old double hump race heads....owner said it was touted as a " race motor". It did have tall valve covers,Victor JR and Comp roller rockers, we'll see what happens once I get it opened up....lol

Great info.

At over 600 views, I think you underestimated your audience! Lots of us want to learn what it takes to work your magic. Very interesting post!

Beautiful work

Thanks for posting, cool stuff. If I remember right you did a similar thread on some big block heads you fixed years ago, but you were able to do before and after flow numbers and the difference was drastic. Thanks again for sharing