Many of you were very helpful in my old threads with advice as far as parts, distributors, and general advice while tackling this project. I lifted the cab, tore the motor apart and WOW! My head gaskets were awful, however my motor looks AMAZING! you can still see the original hone marks in the cylinder sleeves after 185xxx miles. I took the heads in to have them checked out. Unfortunately the heads were cracked around the exhaust valves, however the cracks are no where near water and they aren't too bad so I'm using them. The heads were machined, valves grinded, and they look perfect now. All the valves seat amazing and everything is looking great. Through the new heads on the trucks, torqued the ARP studs in, got my motor put back together. The last thing i was going to do was mount the turbo and i decided to pull it apart and clean it. I pulled it apart, it is completely shot. the holding pin that actuates the turbo veins is half warn and the plate that it moves is warn all the way to the veins. So i ordered up a powermax turbo and it should be here friday. Ill let everyone know when she's up and running again! If interested i can post pics of the turbo or anything else you may want to see! Thanks again for all the help! aside from the turbo, everything is going smoothly!

 

I'm not too familiar with the passages and what flows where in these heads, but what did the machinist have to say about using cracked heads?

 

Spin the motor over by hand a few times first to ensure your valvetrain is seated properly. I see that a lot, guys just fire them up thinking everything is hunky dory and destroy pushrods and rockers. It's easy enough to try.

Yeah, I'm interested to hear the thoughts on running the cracked heads as well. Seems like that would be a major hot spot.

 

Just about every head out there is going to have cracks in it, right between glow plug and exhaust seat, the critical spot is in the fuel passage area that call for a new set of heads.

 

No worry about the exhaust valve guide dropping into the cylinder?

 

Truck is running like a champ now. The turbo whistle is absolutely insane with the powermax, the power is unreal. Bob said it exactly right. The guy working at the race shop my heads were taken to builds pulling trucks, pulling tractors, drag trucks etc and he said if i replace the heads they'll look the same after 100k