Cylinder Head Straightening

 Head straightening is most important when dealing with over head cam engines.  Warping or Bowing will effect both the top and bottom of the cylinder head.  Surfacing the bottom of the head will not correct misalignment of the camshaft journals.   This obviously can lead to the camshaft failure due to the misalignment, but also create problems with oil pressure and camshaft timing.  Surfacing a bowed or warped cylinder head without straightening can cause variations in the volume of the combustion chambers.  This leads to different compression ratios among cylinders.  Heads with imperfections of .035 or more can be brought to within .003 at which time the head can be surfaced without the problems of cam alignment or cylinder chamber volume variations.