Hardened Seats. Necessary?

Run as is and when its time to rebuild add them ten.

Only necessary on the exhaust seats. And yes, if the heads are being rebuilt, definitely have them installed now and save yourself the grief.

HELLO Any cylinder heads casted before 1972, will need hardend seats installed for unleaded fuel!!! After that date they were induction hardend from the factory!! Also if you install larger exhaust valve's, you my need to install hardend seats. Because that take's away the area that was induction hardend!! When you have them install and valve job done, your valve job will last a long time, and mile's!!! Good Luck!!

I did not put hardened valve seats in my old mild 440 street/strip eng. Has been together on the road since 2006 and still working fine. But I only put about 5000 miles a year on it. They are 906 heads I did myself as I put the larger 2.14 and 1.81 valves in them. It may have about 25 to 30,000 miles on it and the valve adjustment is still on the money. It is now in my buddies Duster still going strong and its only run on pump gas unleaded. Ron

Thanks for the input guys.

I have the opportunity to pick up an old Black and Decker valve/seat grinder setup for a smoking deal. It's cheap enough that I considered picking it up and trying to build a set of heads myself. However, if I still need to have the hardened seats installed then it doesn't do me as much good to have around. Hardened seats aside, does anyone or has anyone ever used one of these old Black and Decker setups? Is the stone wheel method still around or is it outdated? Think its worth saving or let it go?