CYL HEAD CRACK - HOW BAD?

[THECACKLER]

My situation is that my truck is down and I need to get it road ready ASAP & as inexpensively as possible. I got my heads magna-fluxed yesterday and there's a small crack in #6 cylinder between the valve seats. One of the machinists told me it would "probably" extend into the water jacket. Nobody seemed to know. In the past with other engines I have run heads with a minimal crack between the seats like this without problems. Anybody know what can be tolerated in these IDI's?
FWIW... Promar has rebuilt IH heads for $699 each exchange. I called Clearwater Cylinder Heads and they only sell Chinese re-pops for $375 per. The Chinese heads have a 5 yr warranty but then again Harbor Fright has a lifetime warranty on their stuff and it's still crap.

 

[dyoung14]

I got a set of 7.3 heads that were running, 250 dollars pick up price or i will help someone out if they have to pay for shipping by dropping my price to 200

 

[97idi]

i have a whole motor for sale
$300

 

[typ4]

The head is pretty thin there and it hasnt hit water it will. Not a good spot to chance, you need heads made in india I think, they are pretty good.

 

[icanfixall]

You are completely mistaken about the offshore heads. They are far better than the oem heads. At one time the heads were made in India, New Zealand and China.... Now all we can get is the china heads... They are built better because they cast more material into the areas that International felt they could go lite... See whats happening now... Buy what you will but don't be knocking the import heads. That dog just wont hunt....

 

[THECACKLER]

dyoung14 & 97idi - I appreciate the offers. The kicker is the cost of shipping. Just the 2 heads from TN too me by UPS Freight would be well over $150. I'll keep you guys in mind but for now I have to do the most economical job I can.
Icanfixall - I wasn't ragging the Asian products, I just a.) don't generally trust them blindly. and b.) I like to buy US made parts whenever possible, which is becoming harder and harder. (Even some Moog parts are made in China now.) How are they quality wise? Have they been producing them long enough to stabilize their process? It's some comfort to know that the heads are at least beefed up. More massive iron castings generally can withstand more thermal abuse. It seems that the IH heads are comparable to the post mid to late '70's "light weight casting" Small Block Chevy heads in terms of being prone to cracking. Of the 6 heads I have disassembled and Magged in the last week, 4 were cracked. Of those four cracked heads, 3 were from the left bank, reputed to be the hot side of the engine. I would take this as preliminary evidence supporting that assumption. From what I've seen, cyls 4 & 6 are the worst.
Type4 - Did you at one time or another investigate this left bank temperature condition? Can you enlighten me?

 

[icanfixall]

These offshore heads weigh around 10 lbs more than the oem heads. The deck is much thicker on then. All the heads I port so far are the offshore heads... Not having any trouble either. I do a valve guide replacement on all of them. They are almost at the oem factory worn out measurements fromthe get go and I don't care for a new worn out guide. I know they do this so nothing sticks on a new motor but I go the extra distance to get what I want. The way I build my motors is its a lot of little improvements that add up. There really isn'rt any one thing that adds lots of hp outside adding a turbo.....

 

[Diesel JD]

Be that as it may you can't beat new heads for $300 even if they are made in China. We all compromise on some things in life. The valve guides being like that from the get go would scare me enough to do something about it since the 7.3 already likes to drop valves. I bet most of these cracked heads come from improper removal of heads or overheating the engine at one time or another. I have usually heard of cracks in the prechambers and nowhere else on IH heads unless the motor was overheated or the heads were untorqued improperly.