Racing is dirty business. Grit and grime, wear and tear, wreck and repair are all part of goin' racin'. All this mess has to be cleaned up, serviced, and returned to near perfect condition in order to continue being competitive. Unfortunately, not all that grime is immediately visible from the outside. Inside your engine, heat and dirt can turn vital parts into scrap metal, but there is a way to combat this breakdown — it's called maintenance.
One part of every racers' maintenance schedule must involve cleaning and freshening the cylinder heads. We visited Mike McGann, an expert machinist at Pletcher Racing, Inc., in Pinellas Park, Florida, to learn exactly what goes into getting a cylinder head ready for a season of racing.
Note: The heads shown in this story are cast iron heads off of restoration projects — not a race car — but we used these to show just how bad heads can be corroded if this cleaning process is not performed every time you do a rebuild or a refresh.
