I bought these AFR190s a few years back, and when installing I noticed that the intake flange angle wasnt sitting perfectly with the Head angle.. I went ahead and installed then and had some gremlins that I was never able to pinpoint... so now I am trying to fix everything that bothered me about the car.

Questions are:
1) Has anyone ever had this problem or heard about this with AFR? I figure they may cure it if I call, surely they realized when I said I wanted them milled to 54cc they new they would have to change the intake angle too Oh and they went on a NEW GM OE LT1 Vette Longblock (removed stock heads of course), so no zero decking or block machine work screwed this up.

2) Is it mandatory to get the heads recut, or can I just get the stock Intake flange angle recut?

Thanks,

Rob

 

I'm guessing that they were angle milled and someone didn't correct the intake manifold flange, they just cut the intake to fit.

A good machine shop should be able to fix this for you, but then they should correct the intake manifold by spot facing where the bolts go thru so it seals correctly.

That should help the gremlins.

Bret

 

Thanks.

So are you saying just leave the heads as sits and bring my intake to any machine shop and see if they can knock a few degrees off each side..... or does the machine shop need to redo the heads too? Do you think getting in touch with AFR is the wisest thing to do as of now?

Rob

 

Nope don't fix the intake, fix the heads first then you have to get the intake respot faced.

Bret

 

Ok so basically AFR did goof up the heads..... that is what I was thinking but dont understand why the Intake would need work afterwards. Does everyone have to get intake work dont once they get there AFRs? I figured they would be bolt on in this regaurd.

Rob

 

Rob,

Someone someplace angle milled them, meaning they cut the deck surface at a angle to reduce the chamber size. AFR probably didn't do this. When you "angle mill" the heads you have to correct the intake manifold flange since you will change this angle too.

When you do this the bolts holes that hold the intake manifold on to the head are at a different angle. Therefore the flat area where the washer and head of the nut/bolt sits is at the wrong angle so they will pull the intake to one side or another. Then it doesn't seal well and you have problems.

Find a machine shop and ask them if they can fix a head that was not angle milled correctly. If you tell them all this stuff they should know what to do.

Bret

 

Ok that is exactly what I was thinking, however AFR DID mill them. These were purchased BRAND NEW from AFR and at that time I told them I wanted them to get me setup with 54cc Combustion chambers.... but I guess they felt not obligated to setup the intake side correctly I just want to have my ducks in a row when I finally call them about it on monday.

Rob

 

Based on the posts, it is obvious SOMEBODY doesn't know what is going on. Take the heads to a machinist, and check the angle, of the intake mounting surface on the head, and compare it to what it should be (10 degrees off the deck). That is where you should start. There should be no reason/need to alter the intake itself (mounting surface or bolt holes*) in any way, at least on run of the mill setups anyway. If the intake does not line up, after the angle (if it is indeed off) is corrected, additional material was needed to be removed from the intake mounting surface. A good machinist should be able to determine this, to prevent setting up the heads twice.

*If more than allowable amount of material was needed to correct angle, which implies too much material removal was necessary, then bolt hole lineup may be an issue.

 

Arnie is right.

As I said above though.....

Since the intake bolt pattern of a LT1 is not perpendicular to the mounting surface the intake should be spot faced correctly after the heads are angle milled.

Bret

 

So I sent my heads back to AFR and told them about the problem, asked them to correct it. They advised at first that an LT4 intake fit fine on it, even tho it is a LT1 Setup. So anyway I advised them that the angle is definitely ****ed.... and that they should fix it (it was pretty bad). They advised I should fix the intake to match, I again advised they need to fix the heads I spent ~$2k on. So anyway eventually they said well ok we will just skim the intake surface to their latest jigs.... and will advise if the angle was in fact not correct. To this day, I have not been able to get them to say Yes they were wrong or No they werent..... I honestly get a "I dont know" when I ask. Well, I recieved the heads back today... the angle is now PERFECT... BUT... the head intake surface is MUCH lower now and I am going to have to take at LEAST .060" off of the base of my intake to get the intake to mate to the heads before it bottoms out on the block. I also have noticed that the Head intake PORTS are REALLY high on the Intake Manifold now... I mean there is only going to be about .020" of Intake Manifold flange riding on the gasket then to the Head. If I were to port match my Intake Manifold Runner outlets I would have a paper thin roof on port. At this point I am not even sure the top of the intake wont literally drop INSIDE the gasket because it is sooo close, yet again giving a poor seal.

I am going to have to take pictures to explain this probably, it looks like AFR is getting another phone call but I am not so sure there is a fix for this one. My castings maybe fubard now. You can actually see the heads sitting about .050 down on the block head surface from the corner from the block deck surface.

It does appear to me that initially AFR had sent the heads with an intake flange angle configured for the stock casting... but me ordering the 54cc heads and them milling ONLY the combustion chamber side caused my problems....

Rob

 

All AFR castings come as 76cc bare. If you order a 58mm or whatever, they mill them to achieve that.

I ran into similiar problems with my AFRs just recently, and they came with 76cc chambers. A lot of mine had to do with the block being REALLY decked and the special intake. I took the whole setup to the machine shop and they got it all squared away.

 

I have AFR 190 cc heads with a 54cc chamber that I bought new from AFR in 1998.
I've had no problems with them in 30K miles.

Tom Piper

 

Right. The problem is the did mine wrong

I also have no other custom work. New stock block and stock LT1 intake.

Rob

 

Sounds about like me..... aside I have had problems (refer to above). I dunno, perhaps they had a student machinist doing mine

Rob

 

It almost sounds like they did up the heads with the intake the previous owner may have had, did you get any feedback from them?

I didnt have any problems with mine as well.