Refurbing my dad’s 2000 Xterra, and as part of the head gasket job I decided to redo the heads. Quickly found out that a bespoke refit at a local machine shop would be super expensive, so bought these from Allied instead.
Heads were spotless out of the box, all threads were clean, so install was a breeze. Emailed allied to ask if I should take any steps to lubricate before startup, they suggested a half pint of oil poured over each head before installing valve covers.
At startup there was a good bit of valve train noise, which got gradually quieter as it idled. Next startup was perfectly quiet, though, and ran far quieter than it did on the old heads.
I’ve put over a hundred miles on them now, still super quiet! Looking forward to driving these for a long time…
Shipped the old heads back, allied received them and refunded me right away!
