Look what came in the mail today!!!!!!!!

[onebadcoastie]

Straight from Odessa cylinder heads in Clearwater, Florida. 2 day shipping for both heads. Brand new casting, all brand new components. Super stoked. Just waiting on my glow plug harnesses and coolant filter.

[Gearhead2012]

Check the valve recession, it's worth it. Factory specs are .013-.027...you need to be at least .020, preferably much deeper. Also, it wouldn't hurt to have them pressure tested, I've seen the injector cups and glow plug tubes leak after being installed. Not to give you a panic attack, they look nice...just trying to save you any trouble. Sometimes those new castings will be assembled right on the ragged edge of the specs, and 6.0's need all the valve recession they can get.... .040" wont hurt. Good luck.

EDIT: after looking at the pics...I'd bet you're in the .017-.019" valve recession range...I could be off, I'm actually kinda curious to see how close I am over the internet. I cut the valve seat to show a .045" recession before they're milled. Most take .002-.005" to be milled off, putting them around .040" recession. That's more critical if the block has been milled, less so if not...but generally won't hurt anything...sorry to beat a dead horse.

[onebadcoastie]

Originally Posted by Gearhead2012

Check the valve recession, it's worth it. Factory specs are .013-.027...you need to be at least .020, preferably much deeper. Also, it wouldn't hurt to have them pressure tested, I've seen the injector cups and glow plug tubes leak after being installed. Not to give you a panic attack, they look nice...just trying to save you any trouble. Sometimes those new castings will be assembled right on the ragged edge of the specs, and 6.0's need all the valve recession they can get.... .040" wont hurt. Good luck.

EDIT: after looking at the pics...I'd bet you're in the .017-.019" valve recession range...I could be off, I'm actually kinda curious to see how close I am over the internet. I cut the valve seat to show a .045" recession before they're milled. Most take .002-.005" to be milled off, putting them around .040" recession. That's more critical if the block has been milled, less so if not...but generally won't hurt anything...sorry to beat a dead horse.

When I talked to them on the phone and ordered them, they specified that they took care of cutting all the valve seats and resizing the valves as necessary. The whole reason for me ordering from them and explaining what I wanted/needed was because I don't have the shop here to do the work. That's the whole reason I ordered them.

On top of that they pressure test everything prior to shipping them out. They indicated that they have been water tested to 35 psi (which the truck should never see) and they have been fuel tested to 85psi, more than I'll ever put to it.

[Gearhead2012]

Very good, yeah I've seen some of their heads come in before...not bad. Not to bad mouth anyone my name, but alabama cylinder head sent us some "rebuild" duramax heads...it looked like the valve job was done with a gravel rock out of the parking lot...terrible junk. Cool deal though, I'm glad they seem to be good quality. If you don't mind, roughly how much did they run, just ball park.

Out of curiosity, what is the recession at...if you happen to have a depth mic, or even a set of calipers. If the block hasn't been resurfaced, you'll probably be ok with .017" or so...less would still make me nervous.

[PGreenSVT]

I haven't seen any negatives on Odessa's heads and they have real attractive pricing. I'd probably look to them if I needed replacement heads for my truck.

[Tuscany]

Good deal Shack!! Glad you finally got them. Gearhead I had ordered a new head from them and recommended them to Shack for the reasons he stated as he didn't have a machine shop to do the work properly and Odessa does everything you stated in your "How to machine a 6.0 head" thread.

They are on top of their game and know what they are doing. They even offer a 2 year unlimited mile 100% parts 100% labor and 100% shipping covered warranty on all the heads they sell. Plus they offer free standard shipping as well as free return shipping for your cores.

Their prices are $1300 for a completely machined set of heads that are within "spec" and thats shipped. (standard shipping) I bought an extra set of "good" heads for mine before I ripped it down for studs and gaskets as I didn't want to have the down time in waiting on the heads to come back. Anyhow both of the "good" heads were cracked in multiple places and then I was down to the 2 heads on my truck to get me through. The right side was good no cracks, passed mag, vacuum, pressure and only needed .004" taken off. While the left side was cracked in 2 places. The left side was the one with the failed gasket as well it failed between cylinders 4 and 6 and was starting to go between 6 and 8 (leaking from cylinder to cylinder not cylinder to water jacket) I ordered a new head from them and they bought the 2 bad heads off of me and sent shipping labels for them as well as the one that was cracked on my truck. Overall experience with them was a 10 out of 10. Great company to deal with and highly recommend to anyone in a jam with cracked heads.

[SharkDiver]

I got my heads from them also when I did my studs.. Its a great deal.. There price use to be $1100 but in Jan 12 they raised it to $1300, Its still a good deal.

[onebadcoastie]

Just an FYI...If you purchase brand new heads like I did, the warranty is 5 years unlimited mileage.

The price for a reman head with machine work is $655 each + $200 core. Brand new castings are $700 each with no core.

Not to mention, 2nd day air for both heads from Florida for $380 is awesome!!

Bryan, thanks again for turning me onto those guys. Like I said, all that's left is the glow plug harnesses (which my local dealer was able to match Tousley), IPR coolant filter/manifold and then a few little goodies from BPD. I go on holiday routine at work in December and plan to work on it then. I figure already having the heads will shorten my work time drastically....unless I run into issues.

If ya'll call them, talk to Patrick. He helped me out tremendously and he's the one who suggested the brand new castings. Couldn't be more pleased.

If I can remember to grab a set of depth micrometers from work, I'll do so and measure the valve recession when I get home for ya Gearhead.

[onebadcoastie]

UPDATE: I took some measurements of the valve recession. I didn't measure every single valve and the numbers I'm going off of are the numbers in the International VT365 Service Manual I have for 2004-2006 model 6.0L engines. It specifies valve recession at 0.020 plus/minus 0.007. Some of the ones I measured were at 0.016 and others were on the low side of 0.013, a couple being 0.0125 but I'm ok with that (and the tool I'm using isn't the greatest either). I'm not trying to make gobs of power, just reliability and longevity. Hope this helps guys.

[mazsecond]

Those things are beautiful