Cyl Heads-Navarro vs Edelbrock or Offenhauser

[GOSFAST]

Just received a pair of new Navarro castings for a member's build up here (Joe V.)

Gave us a chance to evaluate the Navarro's over the others. We've generally preferred either the Edelbrocks or the Offy's for our own builds here, this is based on all our past experiences.

Not even sure where to really begin but here's where we're at presently. Joe has also been apprised of our findings so far!

Initially when we unpacked the heads we noticed some small "dings" on some of the surfaces from shipping, one specifically where the "fire-ring" on the head gasket would be resting!

The castings themselves are "decent", minimal porosity, nothing substantial or noticeable. From this point on it's mostly downhill though??

The machining is downright horrible, especially considering it's ALL CNC'd, including the chambers. First item we found is the "finish" on the registers for the head bolt/stud washers. Each head also has varying measurements for the heights from the head surface to the register tops. Entirely unacceptible here, but is easily repairable. The only "good" machined surfaces are the thermostat hsg areas!

The bottom surfaces on both heads needs to be addressed. One was machined with a "blade" the other appears to have been done on a belt-sander?

Next are the camber volumes, they are advertised as 75/76 cc's (they are referred to as "blower-heads") when they're actually closer to 81. This is a fairly easy fix simply by milling! The valve pocket sections are machined deep enough to make .500" lift at the valve, way too much, they should have left more material (about .100") making the chambers thicker/stronger?

The photo's below show some of what I posted here. They show many of the "dimensions" we don't feel too comfortable about! One specifically in the valve chamber area where it is only about .250" thick, the Offy's are over .650" in the same section.

There are 5 or so water holes in each head not lining up correctly with their respective holes in the head gaskets. These will have to be modified.

Many of these "issues" we will address here, however, some we have no control over and will end up being used "as-is" if Joe decides to use them at all.

Thanks, Gary in N.Y.

P.S. All-in-all we would not choose these heads for any builds here where we were calling the shots, if a customer still chooses to go with them he will have been forewarned of our take on them! We'll stay with either the Offy's or the Edelbrock's for now! (Heard S.) If you're reading along here no word as of last week on the Edelbrocks yet?? Thank God you didn't choose these Navarros? In the bottom photo here we machined the bolt registers towards the bottom of the photo, all 6 (5 short and the 1 long) of the top ones pictured were as we rec'd them.