crack in my 208 gt4 head?

Try to have it magnaflux and find out how deep the fracture are, if it's not too deep sometimes machine shop can just weld it up.

 

Those cracks will continue to grow until they break into the water......Also, there is a risk of dropping the valve seat -very nasty!

Magnaflux (MPI) only works on steel or other magnetizable material. Fluroescent dye penetrant is the best inspection method for this problem.

The repair procedure will be:

- Remove valve seats,
- grind out cracks to uncontaminated material
- TIG weld with the right filler rod, pre and post weld temperature control,
- Machine combustion chamber, plug hole and valve seat recesses,
- Install oversize valve seats,
- re-inspect for cracks and pressure test.

All very specialist processes, find someone who does this type of work frequently, it isn't a job for someone without the right skills....

 

You should care.

The easiest thing is usually to just find a new head. I think the repair job on that one would run around $500-$1000 here.

 

Probably not a 'new' head, but a good used one. Altho, it may still be less $$ to repair yours depending on how scarce/in demand they are in your area.

 

Not sure if those crack are bad or not. Sometimes heads will develop small cracks like that on thin sections of Alum between key features. It seems they may be more of a surface phenomena.
On another car (4 Cyl Mopar) a poor thermostat design, and my wife's "get home itis" caused me to put several heads on it. Almost all with small cracks like that between the valve inserts. When I asked head rebuilders... all of the expert head rebuilders said those cracks are okay, they can be welded, but they will always comeback and they won't get any bigger or cause any problem. Looking at many of these heads in wrecking yards they all had those types of crack and did not appear to be leaking water.
I would check with some head experts and make sure if you get another head that it does not have those types of cracks in them. Sometimes rebuilders will "peen" those types of cracks "out" with a punch and a hammer.

Mark