If in fact my valve guides are worn and the cause of my valve train noise, what should one do...a little history of the heads..
Bought used, were not used that many miles, but were used hard. Have had some abnormal valve train noise since installed 1.5 years ago, did cam swap this fall and the much smaller cam now allows you to hear the valve train noise even more...and now the more miles the louder its starting to get.. I've had the valve train and lifters all swapped and torn down numerous times tryign to cure this. The valve guides do not seem to have excessive wear, but do have some, maybe .005 on some.
There's about 10k miles now on the heads since I've had them..unknown before that...

These are stock LT1 LE2 heads.

This probably a stupid question but, Should I:
1) Start over and buy some new heads like AFR/TF etc?
2) Tear these down and have them rebuilt. I've had heads rebuilt twice in my life, and neither time worked out well, so thats my hesitance on doing this and asking this question..and that was over 10 years ago... Any problem having them rebuilt buy someone known to do LT1 heads?? I did not have the luxury of a forum like this the times before 10-15 years ago

 

i agree have llyod take alook at them and see what he thinks.

 

Yep, I was going to have Lloyd do them this time if I was going to keep them and go that route. He's cleaned up these heads before I installed them, but we did not have him look at the guides etc, he sent them off for the threads to all be heli-coiled, and he's done a couple of intakes for me.
Thanks

 

You need to open your eyes and see the pattern here.

 

wow another usefull post from you. so very not suprising

like stated before just take em down and let lloyd look at them

 

Is valvetrain noise your only problem? No burning/losing oil or anything? I would just take them to a machine shop and have them looked over and possibly liners installed. Lloyd doesn't do his own machining so unless you are getting them ported you aren't gaining anything by taking them to him. Is there a machine shop closer to you like Automotive Machine?

 

Nope, no oil loss at all, just the "noise". Yeah, I thought Lloyd had said before he had sent them off the time before when I just had them heli-coiled, but figured at least who he sends them to knows these heads, or if it even matters for this type work.

 

It is useful, if he wants to fix the problem he needs to identify the cause.

 

If the valve guides were badly worn you'd probably be burning a little oil. Are you sure there's not another problem?

 

Not absolutely sure, but the noise is from the valve train definitely. Swapped lifters, still there, changed preload from 0 to 1 turn and everywhere in between and still there.
The noise it right at 1500-2k rpms only.
Swapped guide plates, still there. Switched to SA rockers...still there.
A friend of mine checked the valve guide wear while the car was in his shop getting the tranny rebuilt and said there were a few that were marginal but did not feel they were enough to make the noise, but added they were checked while the motor was cold, so when it warms up it may be a different story..and the noise gets louder as it gets warmer.
It has brand new valve seals on it, so wouldn't the seals if they were doing their job keep any excessive oil for getting down the valve guide if the seals are wiping the oil off the stem as they should?
I had also swapped springs to PAC1518's about 2k miles ago, noise was there before and after.

So I've basically redone everything except for removing the heads to try to isolate the issue.