Hello from Dorking!

I was equally surprised as so far I have been really happy with what all the previous purchases from them. Had a call from Darren this morning and while he was very happy to give me my money back and arrange a courier to pick up the head, he seemed to be totally uninterested in why I am not happy with the head (assumed it was because I felt the head was overskimmed) did not try to offer any other solutions, and when I told him about the ground down valves, he tried to say that the valves might be shiny as "they gave the had a quick clean before sending it as it would have been on a shelf for some time"...

Really disappointed with how this was handled as despite me being super polite and genuinely interested in finding a solution without complaining/assigning blame, I felt there was zero interest in finding out what happened and how we can resolve it positively, and instead just a "you're not happy so we will give you money back so let's close the topic."

Now I need to find another head quickly without breaking the bank.. So far the 2 best of the bad options is a reconditioned head from the likes of Redmans for around £400 (ouch,,,,) or a new bare head from MGOC for £325 but then I will need to fully kit it out, so not just cams I was going to swap either way, but valves and all....

Amazing 🙁

It's not a good outcome is it.
The bare head will need 16 valves and valve springs, oil stem seals and a lot of valve grinding.
I'm sorry you don't have more choices mate.
As for those valves being shiny they have been well and truly planed by the milling machine.
Edit: how many people with less knowledge than yourself would have just fit it?

The likelihood of us all meetings up is vanishingly small, yet we are a loosely connected brotherhood.
Kick one & we all limp.
One poor experience reverberated through the community, it might be overlooked if it’s is an inexpensive part, inconvenient yes but not a deal breaker. This cuts across everyone who shops there’s bow; the head not being stripped, the deviation from excepted limits with the machining & the dismissive response from the company.
Do you recall Gerald Ratner, one error is all it takes.
Just a reflection.
M

Of course those like myself who are not in the UK are now even more wary of placing such an order as the time delays and cost of shipping make such transactions even more un attractive

I asked Darren about refurbed cylinder heads recently as was looking to buy a 120 MEMS1.9 head complete with valves and followers but without cams.  He said there were no options with the refurbished heads as the supplier would only deliver complete heads and wouldnt add or subtract parts.  He agreed this wasnt ideal but it was all the supplier would do.     I think you must have caught Darren on a bad day if he didnt seem interested. Try putting some ideas to him about alternatives, he will be emabrassed he has passed on something that was under par and will be receptive.

You asked about difference between 120 and 135 heads; To answer that can you clarify if your 120 head is a MEMS1.9 type (with distributor cap) or a MEMS3.0 (coil pack type).   A 135 head will drop straight on in place of a MEMS3.0 120 head as they are the same thing with just better cams in the 135, They also both use the same cambelt & tensioner which is nice and simple

To put eaither a 135 or 120 MEMS3.0 head onto a MEMS1.9 engine you just need
1.a simple adaptor in the back of the inlet camshaft to attach the rotor arm. Its less than £ 30 and is a DIY fit
2. to plug the hole where the camshaft sensor would normally go in the head (yep, a 2nd hand camshaft sensor does the job fine).
3. the later cambelt kit with the automatic tensioner. (Its just too much buggering around to modify a later head for an early manual tensioner to provide zero benefit).

135 cams work very well in either version of the 120 head (with the forementioned adaptor if they are going on a MEMS1.9 head: got the T shirt).
The 120 and 135 MEMS3.0 heads had slightly better valves than the earlier 120 MEMS1.9 head though some say this is marginal.
 

Agree. Anybody can have a bad/terrible day for whatever reason. One of those when you don't give a damm about the rest of the world.

I would contact Darren and re-explain the issue all over again

That head is a straight reject!! I hope you send it back. When I did my first engine rebuild, many years ago, I had the block and the head skimmed, but even then, I knew better than to leave the valves etc. fitted.

Notanumber wrote:

I asked Darren about refurbed cylinder heads recently as was looking to buy a 120 MEMS1.9 head complete with valves and followers but without cams.  He said there were no options with the refurbished heads as the supplier would only deliver complete heads and wouldnt add or subtract parts.  He agreed this wasnt ideal but it was all the supplier would do.     I think you must have caught Darren on a bad day if he didnt seem interested. Try putting some ideas to him about alternatives, he will be emabrassed he has passed on something that was under par and will be receptive.

You asked about difference between 120 and 135 heads; To answer that can you clarify if your 120 head is a MEMS1.9 type (with distributor cap) or a MEMS3.0 (coil pack type).   A 135 head will drop straight on in place of a MEMS3.0 120 head as they are the same thing with just better cams in the 135, They also both use the same cambelt & tensioner which is nice and simple

To put eaither a 135 or 120 MEMS3.0 head onto a MEMS1.9 engine you just need
1.a simple adaptor in the back of the inlet camshaft to attach the rotor arm. Its less than £ 30 and is a DIY fit
2. to plug the hole where the camshaft sensor would normally go in the head (yep, a 2nd hand camshaft sensor does the job fine).
3. the later cambelt kit with the automatic tensioner. (Its just too much buggering around to modify a later head for an early manual tensioner to provide zero benefit).

135 cams work very well in either version of the 120 head (with the forementioned adaptor if they are going on a MEMS1.9 head: got the T shirt).
The 120 and 135 MEMS3.0 heads had slightly better valves than the earlier 120 MEMS1.9 head though some say this is marginal.

Many thanks for this @Notanumber this is very helpful, but raises a couple of more questions for me (engine electronics are not something I am too confident with, yet...) My car is the MEMS 1.9 with a coil and distributor cap set up. However, as part of the Cheetah upgrade it had the Turbo Technics custom ECU installed which gives me really hesitant to attempt any modifications to the ignition system as I'm concerned it might not play ball with the custom ECU/wiring set up.. So at the moment I'm leaning towards sourcing sourcing the same type of head I am currently have, especially as I'm slowly getting overwhelmed with all of the extra jobs that have been piling up since I started, what was supposed to be just a basic "recomission".

But just to build my knowledge, are you or someone else who done this mod can explain what takes on the function of the distributor in the updated set up? I can get my head around the old set up, where the rotation of the rotor arm connected to the camshaft creates connections as it makes contact with the distributor points, which energizes the spark plugs in the right sequence, without any intervention from the ECU. But once the distributor is taken out of the equation, which element "tells" the coilpacks, now sitting in the top of the valve cover when to fire?

Thanks in advance
M
 

So I am currently leaning towards staying with the existing head type rather than upgrading to the post 2000 head with coil packs, mostly for the reasons mentioned above, but also because I'm not very confident  buying another head from mgfntfbitz and Daren did not seem particularly interested in offering this option when I mentioned it to him yesterday..

After a lot of googling last night, these are the 3 most viable options I from cost, speed and workload perspective:

• Fully reconditioned head from Redmans  - £465+ postage on an exhchange basis. Since I will be swapping cams over, I will need to check with  Redmans if they are Ok with me sending them my head with their cams (hopefully without having to drop them in), but expect they will be fine with.
• New head with valves and collets already installed from Rimmerbros   - £498+ postage. I was going to swap in my custom Piper Cams camshafts either way, but would have to also transfer (and shim?) the tapets from my head. What is appealing here is getting a brand new head for similar price to a reconditioned one and more long term peace of mind, no risks of over/badly skimmed head, etc, I have never done any kind of head work before so swapping in the tapets is giving me some minor anxiety though
• Buying a used head from ebay and sending it to Redmans for reconditioning service  - £300-400 depending how much I can get a decent head with valves for from ebay. Using Redmans to recondition my original head  was my initial plan, but that was  before I have seen how bad my head was and I would not feel too confident getting it reconditioned. while this is probably the cheapest option, the drawbacks are the time it would take and risk of the head I buy being of poor quality.

Recommendations from the forum folk highly appreciated as I am starting to get a bit overwhelmed with the amount of work and choices to be made..
Thanks
​​​​​​​M
 

Looking at the prices............I'd go for the new head!

Magic.
As you well know old fashioned distributor take the drive from whatever & turns a lobed shaft, this opens points as high lobe passes the follower opening a pair of contacts, this creates a pulse of low voltage. The coil is a transformer which is an alternating current device We are used to transforms stepping down our mains voltage to a lower voltage; they work the other way around & this is what the coil does. The pulse created by the points acts on the primary winding on the coil, the turns ratio of the coil is calculated to step the voltage up to the HT voltage at the secondary, the HT at the plug gap overcomes the resistance of the air & crack, you get a belt from the wire if you get your hand too near the lead.
The last half of this diatribe remains the same with our cars, it’s the front end that changes.
Electronics creates what the points once did & the signals from the various sensors chat with the computer within the box & decided between them when the best time is for the system to trigger. As originally designed the computer is quite conservative in its outlook, if you poke it with a stick you can make it very angry indeed & that stick is Kmaps or SAWS. 
Any addition is welcome to clarify any point or to add, amend & argue. 
M