i bought one of those itialian made ones i would suggest taking it straight to the head shop have deck checked and do a valve job.i installed it and thought it was a timing issue then work started and this machine set past the warranty. after much head scratching and thinking the timing was a 180 out. the valves where not seating properly and i kept looking past it since it was a brand new head.
so after the head went thru the shop all good now,talked to several guys who installed these and no problems i just happened to get one that the valve guy on the line had a bad night.i also installed aftermarket injectors in this b model cat after 40 hrs run time i had two injector failures.i installed all new cats for 60 bucks a piece more, and it was a whole different engine.
so after much help from the HEF crew, and being a tightass,and having to do several steps twice,i am now a better mechanic then i once was.
I didn't go with the Italian head, I went with HHP (Highway & Heavy Parts) out of Coleman, Michigan. We studied it before we put it on and it all appears to be 100%. Everything bolted up to it perfectly. It's all together, and today I think I'll finally have it running.
I bought all brand new internal parts, most from HHP except for the piston coolers from Cat, which after a 4 hour round trip there and back upon opening the bags they came in, discovered they don't sell the bolts to hold them in with them; so back to Cat for 6 bolts. Later I found I could have bought those through HHP as well.
New oil pump, 6 new Interstate McBee injectors/nozzles from HHP, pretty much everything I could think of came from the people at HHP. Very helpful, knowledgeable and 1/3rd the price. They have a very laid back attitude about warranty as well, so if anything is awry, I have a good feeling that they'll be easy to work with as opposed to Cat.
The operations manager from HHP called me to thank me for the recent "activity" and we chatted for quite a while. He was very informative about where OEM parts come from these days, and revealed a few details that made me feel quite at ease with my decision to go aftermarket. I admitted to him that I was a little uneasy about not going with a Cat reman head at first, but when I thought about the fact that those recon heads are only as good as the guy or machine repairing them, I was more comfortable knowing from him that they buy from the same exact manufacturers that all the OEM's do, and the biggest revelation was, he explained that everybody is always so adamant about buying Cat liners because they're "better". Well, come to find out that there are only
TWO manufacturers of cylinder liners in the WORLD, and they are both in CHINA.
It might say CAT on them, but they come from either one of the two places in China that makes them for everybody else. It's all about the SPECS that the manufacturer has to build to; they must comply with the spec's per the customer, so different brands offer different quality. I had one guy say "yeah, but the quality of the steel in China isn't as good"...well, tell that to Cat then. Die-Hard Cat guys think they're the best...but that information just broke the myth.
It's like anything else, opinions. There's a repair shop down the road here that does many, many rebuilds in trucks, loaders, equipment and uses nothing but Interstate McBee in all his rebuilds, never has any problems with the parts.