Looking for experienced Ferrari Machine shop to press valve seats in/out

I have had a considerable amount of head work done by Bob.
If his operation is still open, I would reccommend him.

I do not have his number but you might find him through Google.

Bob Z.

 

Can't recall if he's still there or not but James over at G&S is the local "Guru" when it comes to doing extraordinary things. If you hae not yet sent out the work please comment and I'll get the contact info to you. You are PNW, we are in Denver, CO so hopefully this is not to far out of the way

 

The original valve seats are manganese bronze and shouldn't have the valve seat recession problem of steel seats. I think this is discussed in this forum.

 

If you want a local source, John Maloney at Autosport in Seattle has worked on Ferraris for years. He did the machining on my 330 over 25 years ago.

 

Contact Dave Helms at Scuderia Rampante in Boulder, CO. It just does get any better.

LINK: http://www.****************.com/

 

Ditto the reco for Autosport in DT Seattle. They're good guys, very down to earth, good skills/careful, and very straight forward and reasonably priced. Real car guys there, not posers. Always a pleasure to work with.

 

When Only The Best Will Do.....

Butch Dennison
Dennison International Motorsports
Puyallup, WA
253-435-9143

He works on old Ferraris.....and Dino's.....;-)

Tritone

 

Scott,
It would also be worth the time to ask Mark Glenwood at FoS and Carlo at Alfa of Tacoma for their recommendations.

 

Carlo uses Autosport.

 

There are several reasons for valve seat replacement, the worst case is that the engine has been thrashed and the original seats are loose in the head casting. Back in the day when I owned my 1959 Testa Rossa tr0768, it has been thrashed hard by Gerry Grant driver for Hahn Racing. I was always told My Testa Rossa was the only car Jerry could not break.

My valve seats were so loose from over reving and thrashing that new seats alone were not going to solve the problem. The aluminum surrounding the seats takes a great deal of abuse from the constant pounding of the valves opening and closing and weakning the parent metal.

If this is the reason you are replacing the original seats you might consider my solution. We machined new seats oversize and threaded the o/d with fine threads. Using a flycutter we trued the curcumfrence of the seat hole to the center of the valve guide. Then using a bottoming tap we threaded the valve seat hole. We made a tool to screw the new seats in and tighten them to the base of the seat hole. After we installed the newly machine seats we then pinned the seats in 3 equal spaced locations. Reason for using only 3 pins was that if we had to replace one of the seats we would have an addiontional 3 equaly spaced places for new pins. Keep in mind this was nearly 40 years ago and technology and metalurgy has changed, anyway just a though.

Howard Musolf
1981 308gtsi
1982 400i Cariolet
Maserati Spyder
2 many brass era cars.

 

I have replaced seats in many heads at my machine shop in Redwood City, Ca. No problem. Replacement seats are off the shelf and readily available. Beware of super hard seats as the valves will bounce at hi revs. Plain cast iron are plenty adequate but a little more durable seat is ok too. Datsun 246 and A10 and a lot of early Ferrari had the same problem. Every modification has a trade off. Bronze seats transfer heat better but if car is overheated they expand greater then cast iron then shrink down a little more every time you overheat. Thus, they become loose. If you would like a quote, email me back. I own one of these cars.

clay
CHO machine shop