,
Joe: So what did you come up with, Sherlock?
Nick Hunter: As it turns out, the previous owner of this head had installed oversized valves. However, they did not install new valve seats and instead cut the OEM seats deeper to fit the new, oversized valves.
Nick Hunter: On a street car, this probably wouldn't have been as much of an issue, but my zombie intuition tells me that when cylinder head temps were drastically increased as a result of the extended durations of a land speed pass, the valve seats ended up shifting.
Nick Hunter: Too much material had been removed from the seats and they lost some of their interference fit as they got thinner, allowing our problems to happen. Since we're in a time crunch and couldn't get new valve seats in time from Japan, we had to source a new 20V head and give it a port and polish, as well as a valve job.
Joe: Dude, these long ass explanations put Chuck to sleep… so to sum it up…
Nick Hunter: Because racecar!!!
Joe: That's more like it! So other than Chuck's “2 liters is too much” engine build, is there anything else you've been working on lately?
Nick Hunter: Hmm.. some Grand Am racing, I built this bastard VQ35HR stroked to 3.7L for AM Motorsports.
Right around the time Chuck woke up from nappy time.
