Bare,three stud, oval port 2.0 Liter Heads. Just got the email about these a few minutes ago. Says they are in stock and ready to ship $279. Part # 004 CH 039 BC Link not working right.

Wonder if they are AMC based casting or someone new? Hope the quality is decent.

Link didn't show a picture, only text.

Great news for us sticking with the Type IV.

Don't see it on their website yet but everything else looks like it's AMC based heads.

Here's a link 914 Heads

That is a good deal, but it is bare no guides and I bet no seats, so you will have to buy quality seats, valves, guides, springs, retainers, keepers and pay for the machine work.
I wish they showed a pic of the chambers.

I wonder if there AMC or a new casting. I'm still deciding if I'm going 2.2 4 cylinder or just go 3.0 or 3.2 . I need to check with head porter to see if they know about these.

So tempting to buy a set with that 15% off discount they are offering.

I got that email too! I don't believe these heads have the 2.0 spark plug location. If they did I think they'd sell a lot of them.

Im pretty sure that they are 2.0 plug location, look at my nos 2.0 heads, Looks about the same
Click to view attachment

I'm gonna order a set tomorrow.

Mark, let us know what you think about them when you get em.

I'll order a set and see what happens when they hit 500F head temps.
In the past they offered modified AMC castings, but I wouldn't doubt they've k locked them off in China, like everything else.

Pretty sure they're not Spanish AMC's at that price. I buy AMC 2.0 bus heads by the pallet from a cozy importer and I can't get that price.

I'm going to get a pair. I'll know what I'm dealing with when I machine them and weld them.

It would be great if they're quality castings like the AMC's, which are very good castings of a durable alloy, despite the crappy parts and rough casting details in the ports.

With China it's a crap shoot. Some good some awful.

From a head porter perspective, on a set of non stock heads, what do you keep if you're switching to bigger valves, and better springs?

A few type 1 head porters have used the AA501 casting with success. Maybe using the same foundry for the type 4?

Not sure if I undertand the question, but if you mean what parts from the amc heads do I keep the answer is none. Seats, guides, valves, springs and retainers all go to scrap.

I would hate to see my heads at 500f

Sounds like a good deal for a new casting!

Not sure if I undertand the question, but if you mean what parts from the amc heads do I keep the answer is none. Seats, guides, valves, springs and retainers all go to scrap.
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That's what I meant to ask. Bare casting preferred.

I'm interested to see how these casting work out. Having a second source with spark plug already relocated should help. I see vendors charging $250-400 to relocate to 2.0 location.

So who has placed an order for these?

Anyone want to order an extra one or two and swap for machining time? Couldn't hurt to ask, hahaha

Just placed mine. These aren't AMC. AA took the lead on this since AMC basically didn't want to deal with it. They will offer them in complete form in the future, and valve guide bores are both the same size for modern valves. Original 914 2.0 heads had a larger ex guide in conjunction with the sodium filled valves, but since sodium valves aren't available or used much anymore we can use smaller guides.

So stainless steel valves? That is what is in my 2143cc.

Nice!

Wonder if they will make some /6 heads now!

So they come with valve seats? Or pockets for valve seats?

Pockets. You can order them complete, but who makes those valve/seat/spring parts and how well their machined was not something I wanted to explore at this time.

I'm curious how good these are. I'm half tempted to get a pair. Has anyone received theirs yet?

I think the "world" is waiting to see what McMark thinks of them. He will post his thoughts here or start a new thread when there is something to share.

Silly question, would 2.0 heads work with factory 1.8 cylinders or are they the wrong diameter?

I recently saw a company selling type VW (edit type 1) heads new complete with valves, springs etc for $125.00 if I recall correctly. I wonder if it is from the same people. For the life of me I cannot seem to find it now.

Got mine. I could've sworn I replied to this thread, but I guess I got sidetracked. At this point I've only inspected them visually. But comparing them to stock 2.0 heads, everything looks the way it should. You would be hard pressed to identify these as reproductions. My next step is to ship them off to a machine shop that I trust for a more thorough inspection than I'm set up for. But I don't see why the bare castings shouldn't be a good starting point. The first few sets I end up usings I'll expect to remachine the cylinder spigots and then I'll know if their machining is correct. Installing the seats and guides should be the same as having a stock set rebuilt.



Only the 1.7 cylinders/head is smaller. The 1.8 cylinders will fit in 2.0 or 1.8 heads.


That's too cheap. Something's not right there. The cost of parts is more than $125.

This is all very encouraging. Thanks Mark.

Click the pictures for the full size versions if you want a closer look.

Nice, thanks for posting.

Are you going to install Timeserts or Helicoils for the studs?

I think I'm going to have to get a set.


I don't see why you have to on a new casting.

One thing I do see is no step in the cylinder seating area. It would be interesting to know what the chamber CC is.

notice the CHT location isnt drilled/tapped either.

Overall they don't look bad at all for a first genertion casting run. I'll be porting a pair this weekend. I'll also use my cnc to reverse engineer and check critical features to see how they compare.

I wish they'd copied the later smog version which has more material around the exhaust port. My contact at AA said they plan to add material in several areas to the next batch for more aggressive porting. Wasn't able to get alloy info., but I'll be able to tell a lot by the way it machines.

They aren't as beefy as the AMC heads we've been modifying for years, but if AA works on that like they said they are they could have a solid product at a much more affordable price.

Thanks for your input Len. Very important.

Agreed thanks Len! and a question..
Ive been debating buying a set of AMC heads and engaging in some serious machine work to mod them to 2L spec and twin plug for my 2366 Mtr build w/Nikkies.
Do you think these would be acceptable options while perhaps saving me some scratch?

Verdicts still out on these castings. They make a good first impression, but at this point I need to work a pair. They clearly aren't as beefy as the amc's. The amc's are very good castings that have proven durable on a lot of very high output large displacement engines over the past 15 years. We'll see. Like I said, once I machine a pair I'll know a lot more.

I would LOVE it if I didn't have to weld heads to move the spark plugs anymore. I still do all of the welding and peening personally and it takes it's toll physically. Not to mention the time.

Any new progress/updates on this?

Well I for one want to thank you for personally doing the welding and peening on your heads, since my set just arrived for my build today. Can't wait to drive them and see what all the fuss is about!

Thanks for purchasing a pair of my heads! Lot of time and effort goes into them. Hope you're satisfied with the performance.

As for the knockoff heads, I've just finished a pair. They machined well and critical deminsions are a match, for the most part. The pushrod tube bores are a couple of thousanths small, which is good since the machine work to them is rough as a cob and require honing to smooth them out so they don't tear o-rings. The flycut finish is okay, but the work from chamber to chamber varied by a couple of thousanths. Our finish work is with .0005"

The intake ports are awful as delivered. Rough as cobs (and I like rough, but this was a bit much) and don't line up at all with a factory gasket. But that wasn't a big deal for me as they do have the same corkscrew shape, and are undersized such that with port work they lined up fine and flowed the same as our ported heads.

The exhaust ports are pretty much dead nuts copies of the O.E. heads in rough shape and after polishing and blending flow about the same as an untouched stock port, which is good when comparing to other O.E. T4 heads (1.7&1.8) but bad when comparing to what we get out of our AMC heads, which have tiny ports as delivered from AMC and lots of meat around the outside of the port that allows us to carve a far superior shape that we've developed over the years. There's not much that can be done to improve the knockoff ports as they are bulged out where it doesn't help and don't have meat enough to port where it does help.

As for the machining characteristics of the heads I ran them on the cnc at the same feeds and speeds with the same tooling as we use on AMC heads. The chips and machined surfaces were identical in appearance to the AMC heads and the machined dimensions were with .0002" of what we get with the AMC's. That tells me that they at least have similar machinibility, which is encouraging regarding alloy characteristics, but hardly conclusive in predicting durability.

Because they are lightweight castings of an unknown alloy I am sending this pair off for thermal coatings. After which they will go on a 2270 being built by a freind of mine and Jake's for some serious road use. Not screaming high revver, which would actually be less challenging, but in a 412 that is going to be lugged to the ends of the earth, something aircooled heads hate!

My verdict is still out on these castings as far as durability goes. My hunch is that they are going to do at least as well as a 40Y.O. casting that's been run through the ringer. That said, I'm willing to build them out with quality parts if people are interested, but I'm not willing to put any[i] warranty on them beyond my workmanship.

Thanks for your analysis Len!

Len's verdict is good to hear. He mentioned in earlier posts that his source at AA said that they would be reinforcing the molds in the rights places so all in all this COULD BE a win win situation.

I read on shoptalk that this 1st batch sold out already.

It would be great if they could add material for porting.

My verdict is still out on these castings as far as durability goes. My hunch is that they are going to do at least as well as a 40Y.O. casting that's been run through the ringer. That said, I'm willing to build them out with quality parts if people are interested, but I'm not willing to put any[i] warranty on them beyond my workmanship.
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Len,

I'm interested in one set build to standard specs (should go into a 2056 keeping the D-Jet).

Frank

EDIT: please disregard this post and bump!! I just saw the GB thread here:

http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showtopic=319606

I'm just ing this thread to see if there are any updates this year about these AA heads. I wonder if McMark or HAM Inc have any recent thoughts about the current quality of these?

Thank you.

I've been very impressed with the consistency of the castings. So far they have all machined very nicely and the dimensional consistency of the machine work has been spot on, ie, valve guide bore sizing and spacing, chamber heights and volumes, I could go on.

I have now done a fair amount of flow testing with different valve sizes and port mods and found some specific details that these castings respond very well to. Not willing to share those specifics here, but our customers will benefit from this knowledge. Like all other T4 heads the AAP's are capable of making impressive power with the right mods.

Still too soon for me to speak of long term service life, but we have gotten nothing but positive feedback regarding valve adjustment consistency on the heads in service so far.

To date, every pair we've prepped has received ceramic coating to the chambers and exhaust ports. This will extend the life of any T4 head.

World member Shane Sparks got a seriously bad-ass pair of these heads for his ChumpCar. Shane has agreed to share his experience. Endurance racing will be an excellent test of these and any heads.

Overall I feel pretty good about these heads, so far, and think they are a much better choice than 40+ years old O.E. castings. Time will tell.