But Ford have the cams for the BA 4ltr ohc engine and i believe even the cranks cast and machined there and the windscreens made in the pilkington chinese factory so dont totally write off the made in china gear, also my old mans mate who owns cranshaft rebuilders (highly respected engine builders ) has been sourcing parts from china and i think they even have a factory there.Quote:
Originally Posted by uninformed
There is also a difference from say someone like Ford or Stihl setting up their own factory in China and making use of cheap labour, while maintaining control of pretty much all aspects of manufacturing of a said part, to contracting a Chinese company to make something for you.
Culture plays a big role in the final product.
Totally agree and from what Frank is saying they are casting parts for CAT, Cummins and others so i dont think they are a small dinky foundry - a real test on a finished head is the only way we'll know for sure.
I really think we have to get the "China Syndrome" (excuse the pun) out of our heads.
China produces a hell of a lot of products we use everyday, parts that are in Quality name brands, with no problems at all, these companies agressively want more sales and the majority of manufacturers are trying to overcome the bad name cheap and nasty parts. They offer 30,000klm/1 year warranties. If they make crap and it fails it will ruin their business, so at some stage we have to accept that most parts from overseas and that includes Europe, UK, USA and South America would more than likely originated from China.
There is not a great deal of science in casting a head, esp in cast iron and as they already pump out most of the alloy 300TDi heads, they should have the expertise to knock out some cast iron replacements.
Anyway anyone that has an interest, please post here and I'll get back to them with some numbers, I reckon for the cost of an alloy head you could end up with a more reliable head that doesn't end up with soft spots.
Land Rover hasn't done a real good job with the alloy ones, see if the Chinese can produce a decent reliable cast iron job, Regards Frank.
Id be interested in at least one for myself and potentially 3 others who are asking questions that sound like they want head rebuilds done.
What would be the go with securing a cast iron head , Id imagine you could do away with torque to yield bolts ? Use studs or bolts :cool:
I'm oblivious to how much this would normally cost. What approx price range are we looking at?
To be honest, I'm probably not interested, but I'm curious for the future... And I agree with Tank about the China issue. The key is to filter out the crap. Like anything there are good suppliers and crap suppliers. Just need to find a way to verify this place is OK. If it already produces other quality heads then it maybe OK. I think too often people buy the cheapest product they can - which of course comes from China - without any validation of quality, then it breaks and all you hear is, "damn Chinese products!". Not really a fair review....
Last email I recieved from China is that the manufacturers of Alloy 300TDi heads are not willing to knock off a small batch of Cast Iron heads. Why should they, when you think about it they are making a killing supplying replacement alloy heads, if they started making cast iron ones they would end up putting themselves out of business, sorry I couldn't get a better answer, Regards Frank.