The Head TICK CONCERNS Explained with Pics.

[dynobobstieg]

We have been getting a lot of phone calls and e-mails inquiring about this.

There were some Terminators that had Valve seat run out in excess of .006 to .008 on the exhaust side.

The Valve stem deflects in the guide and ticks. The factory valve work early on was not always round.

The exhaust seat material is extremely hard and tooling deflection occurs.
Terminators that suffer this seat run out experience a tick at 25,000 mile mark on driver side and 35,000 on passenger side.

I have not seen a Valve failure because of this ever and not all Cobra's develop the tick.
K-liners are the best fix.

Sincerely,
Robert Stiegemeier
Stiegemeier Porting Service,LLC
636-949-2275

Thank you

 

[Jimmysidecarr]

Is this valve seat run out before, after, ...or as a result of... guide run out(wear)?

If the run out is only in the direction of the thrust angle of the rocker on the valve, I'm thinking the guide wears first and then the seat.

What do you think?

 

[SlowSVT]

I noted some of the valves on my heads (after only 16,000 miles) were not seating around the entire circumference of the seats (half the seat was polished white the other half was brown :dw. The guides are tight with about .002" endplay which makes me wonder if Ford used the valve guides to locate the seat cutter. They were enough of them to lead me to believe they cut the seats independent of the guides which may explain the crappy seal on many of the factory valve installation. This will get resolved when I get my seats re-cut.

 

[dynobobstieg]

Bob is porting right now and unfortunately I am not knowledgeable enough about the Cylinder Heads to answer your questions.
Thanks and I will get answers soon as I can.
R. S.
STIEGEMEIER

 

[Jimmysidecarr]

I noted some of the valves on my heads (after only 16,000 miles) were not seating around the entire circumference of the seats (half the seat was polished white the other half was brown :dw. The guides are tight with about .002" endplay which makes me wonder if Ford used the valve guides to locate the seat cutter. They were enough of them to lead me to believe they cut the seats independent of the guides which may explain the crappy seal on many of the factory valve installation. This will get resolved when I get my seats re-cut.

Interesting and consistent with what I have heard about the quality of the OE "valve job"... which of course is a misnomer since they just basically get assembled and shipped.

I would imagine the SVT engine teams got a bunch of complete Romeo pre-assembled heads and put them on the short blocks they put together.

I don't see any head assembly work taking place here:
Welcome to the home of "Iron Fist, Lead Foot"...

With 32 valves to get right or screw up I believe this is one of the reasons we saw such a wide range of bone stock dyno power numbers. I have heard from different engine builders that a simple valve job can conservatively net any where from 10 to 30 horsepower, and those were mostly old school push rod 2 valve muscle car era engines.

 

[SlowSVT]

Interesting and consistent with what I have heard about the quality of the OE "valve job"... which of course is a misnomer since they just basically get assembled and shipped.

I would imagine the SVT engine teams got a bunch of complete Romeo pre-assembled heads and put them on the short blocks they put together.

I don't see any head assembly work taking place here:
Welcome to the home of "Iron Fist, Lead Foot"...

With 32 valves to get right or screw up I believe this is one of the reasons we saw such a wide range of bone stock dyno power numbers. I have heard from different engine builders that a simple valve job can conservatively net any where from 10 to 30 horsepower, and those were mostly old school push rod 2 valve muscle car era engines.

Here is a poorly focused pic which shows the inconsistency around the circumference of the valve seat as it gets shiny then dull :nonono:

A seat cutter which uses the guide as a pilot should fix everything :banana:

 

[dynobobstieg]

I apologize Bob is now on the Dyno with a customer. I will answer these questions and concerns.
Thank you

 

[safado]

mine developed the tick at 4K miles.. back in 03

 

[03cobraracer]

ha yeah i think mine ticked since the beginning, got the 2nd gen driver head done under warranty, started ticking again. at 54k miles i solved the ticking problem, i blew my motor up at the track and got the newer 9 thread 04 heads, all is well now nice and quiet lol

 

[nextime]

Is there and build date for the Head tick or does it just happen randomly?

My concerns is that I just bought a 2003 with 3000 miles on it a few weeks ago and would guess Ford will not warranty it.

Anyway to help prevent it?

 

[Jimmysidecarr]

Is there and build date for the Head tick or does it just happen randomly?

My concerns is that I just bought a 2003 with 3000 miles on it a few weeks ago and would guess Ford will not warranty it.

Anyway to help prevent it?

Even 04s can develope the tick, the revised heads were not put into production until Jan 05 for the last of the Lincoln Aviator production.(yes it's the same heads and cams):-D

No production date can save you, it just luck and good maintenance using good oil to protect your guides the best you can.
You might get the tick and you might not, Lots of 03s out there with no tick.

 

[My96z]

So this can be cured by a nice valve job? Whenever the heads come of for any reason it would be good to get a valve job done on them at the local machine shop? Might be a good move to make a 'one time' maintenance event.

One more question... how does the cooling mod help this? Is cooling the head better going to do anything for a poorly cut valve seat?

Thanks for the informative post Steig!

 

[Jimmysidecarr]

So this can be cured by a nice valve job? Whenever the heads come of for any reason it would be good to get a valve job done on them at the local machine shop? Might be a good move to make a 'one time' maintenance event.

One more question... how does the cooling mod help this? Is cooling the head better going to do anything for a poorly cut valve seat?

Thanks for the informative post Steig!

Without a doubt, anytime 03/04 heads are off for any reason they should get a valve job. With or without the tick. Mostly street use cars should probably go with OE type iron(?) replacement guides as opposed to the trick bronze guides race cars get, just due to the higher expected mileage.

The head cooling mod in theory moves more coolant through the left head in the hope that localized hot spot detonation can be avoided and to reduce the thermal load on the exhaust guides and the resulting accelerated wear.

 

[hotcobra03]

our cobra had seat issues on 1st 4thread head,exhaust valve cyl 6..

again on 9thread replacement..exhaust valve cyl 6..

im on the ford racing head that was fully loaded ready to go..

i have just over 25k on it now...

engine has 321k original except head...

 

[chitowncobra]

good info!