> who's got the Good Price on a set of heads?

You have your choice of new or rebuilt.

If you buy new heads, beware. While all of the new heads come from AMC Spain
(even the ones sold at the VW dealer), they are not all the same. There have
been numerous reports of valve stem problems with some of the new AMC heads
sold by U.S suppliers other than myself.  The problem is that AMC's U.S.
importer (who supplies all of the U.S. auto parts distributors) does not
actually buy the fully assembled head from AMC, only the bare head. Then
they assemble it themselves, using parts obtained from other sources.
Apparantly, some of the valve stems they buy are not properly hardened, and
tend to mushroom over time. AVP, who supplies my rebuilt engines and heads,
has told me that they have to disassemble every new AMC head they buy and
replace the valve stems before installing it. Some are better than others,
and they're not willing to chance it. 

My AMC 2.1L heads do NOT have these valve stems because I do NOT get them
from AMC's U.S. importer.  Mine are fully assembled in Europe by AMC
themselves. What's more, I can offer a better price by bypassing the U.S.
distributor - $379 each:
<http://busdepot.com/details.jsp?partnumber=025101065C>   

As for 1.9L heads, I cannot get them directly from AMC, but you can use 2.1L
heads on your 1.9L engine. There is only a very small difference in the size
of the combustion chamber; otherwise they're identical. A perfectionist
might argue against mixing one 1.9L and one 2.1L head on the same engine,
but many people do it.  AVP tells me that many, many cores that they get
back have one of each, and clearly ran 100,000 miles or more that way
without any problems. 

A cost-saving alternative is to buy rebuilt heads. We offer good quality AVP
rebuilts that use all European made internals, for just $219 (plus a $50
core deposit). These are built to order so they may not ship immediately.
Link:  <http://busdepot.com/details.jsp?partnumber=025101065CX>

- Ron Salmon
  The Bus Depot, Inc.
  www.busdepot.com
  (215)  234-VWVW

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