Sure, it can go well above the above mentioned prices. But it all depends on how much work is being done. When you are taking a head that need to be dissassembled, cleaned and flushed, glass beaded, spot faced on the head stud holes, milled and dressed, guides removed, hone the guide holes to the next size, install the new guides, hone the id of the new guide, rebuild the top end cam housing and caps, hone the housings to size, clean all the threaded holes, replace all the dowels, do any level of porting and polishing to the intake and exhaust ports, matching the manifolds, hand finishing and polishing the combustion chambers, grinding the valve seats back to spec, or better yet installing oversize valves, and so on and so on. What sort of time you think we are talking about? A day or two? c'mon this again is how I cant figure how there is work being done so quick and inexpensively. Do you really think that all the stuff I have been talking about and showing all of you guys is getting done?

I know that it may be tough to justify after spending the money on all your parts, but let me let you in on a little secret- half the stuff you are dropping all that money on isnt 100%. The block isnt anything to write home about on terms of dimensions on any part of it. All those high performance valves that you all go out and spend big bucks on- well they are all bent out of the box. If you dont beleive me, take any new valve, find someone with a really good lathe and a dial indicator, chuck it up and read the stem to head concentricity. The last set of "popular brand X's" valves came up turning about .004 out of round, take any of the new con rods you buy, pull it apart at the big end, smear some dykem on the mating surfaces, and drag it across a surface plate, and tell me how flat it is, your jaw will drop if you ran a dial indicator across it. All these companies are in production, when you make tons of parts, its tough to keep the quality up. If you shop solely on price, then there is more stuff out there for you than you can imagine, but shop for qualtiy, and well the field gets narrowed down pretty fast doesnt it?

The effort is evident in the work, and the work warrants the price.

The decision on whether or not to do it or how good you need it is up to you to decide.

In the end whats cheaper- to do it right in the beginning, or go back and have to do it again.

I am always amazed at how poeple cant find the time or money to do it right the first time, yet they always find the time and money to do it a second time around.

There is only a few things that any man wouldnt mind doing over and over again, but doing a head probably isnt one of them.

 

Having done this sort of work myself in the past, I definitely can relate to everything your saying.. I give credit to anyone who does it themselves and can make gains without damaging the head or the wallet, I know that this is the first Evo casting I've had in my hands, and I'd like to not damage this one. But I do need to match a bunch of parts together, and really clean up the casting I have, plus the manifold work.. We all can't really afford big dollars, but I do only want to go through this once.. (DH, you'll probably hear from me tomorrow)

 

Wow, that is most certainly impressive for a first timer! Good work!

 

There is a certain bar in Bangkok I'd like to do over and over again... ahem, nevermind.

I'm all about doing it right the first time. That is, as long as I know the difference between right and wrong!

I've NEVER regretted spending money on overkill, especially on "one off" projects like building a motor. However I do have regrets for having work done or doing work that ended up being done half-assed because I didn't know what needed to be done. You'll get some mail from me.

Anyway, I'm sorry for highjacking this thread. Joeycoates has inspired me to at least consider polishing the combustion chambers myself.

 

Agreed, back to the topic, I woudl encourage someone to try it themselves if they feel comfortable, this way they at least have a better understanding about what it can take to do work, rather than just sit back and ***** and moan becasue they think its too much. I think he did a good job.

 

I really hope no one is bashing Darkhorse, his pricing, and esp. his work. Many people have flown across this nation in machines with a quarter the attention to detail darkhorse puts into his work... trust me, I really know! At the same time, people have successfully flown across this nation in machines with the attention to detail of a K Mart bicycle. So don't confuse something that works well, or works better with something that just works. Funny thing is, people who are putting built engines in their cars for daily driver duty, should be looking more at darkhorse than those vendors building race engines. Domestic transportation vehicles suffer far more abuse than 90% of all racing applications when you take extended reliability into account. I'm amused at the fact that the people who need the sturdier build, have the least amount of money, and go to builders who's end result only has to last 25 miles a year on average. Now I'm not saying that other builders engines may not serve you well, but damn, look at the work!

joeycoates,

I've too been inspired, and plan on picking up tools I've not wielded in a very long time. Since I'm installing a manifold and O2 housing on the 20th anyway, and I'm off for a week anyway, guess I'll just go ahead and do it!

 

We're a dangerous bunch, ain't we..

 

Hey Joey, how much to smooth out the ports on my EVO?