Wow, those pic's belong in the un-censored section!

So that piece of valve went from #8 across to #5, and then on to #7? Sounds like a good one for "stupid engine tricks"! I've seen old school bus engines in the graveyard that looked better! Jim, looks like you have your work cut out for you. Good luck in the head search!

Well, the good thing is the guy picked up his boat and took it home. He did not want to spend the kind of money I told him it would take to fix this problem. I wouldn't do a half ass job for him. When I do something for someone, it's the whole ass or nothing.

He left me with the heads. One of them is still a good casting although it looks rough. All of the rust in just on the surface. Nothing a good cleaning couldn't take care of. I am just trying to figure out if I can make this a pair of heads.

Thanks for all the feedback.

Aluminum heads are repairable but won't withstand salt.
Cast Iron heads are generally NOT repairable in a heat zone.

That leaves boat guys kind of out in the cold, unless you go to closed cooling. Hmm...

I have an old single merlin head, but it has rectangular intake ports...
Same deal, broke one and the other is priceless.. to say the least.

Brings new meaning to the term "priceless".

I'm still trying to figure out how it went from cylinder to cylinder. And now you say it possibly crossed sides too?
That's one for "Ripley's, Believe It Or Not!".

Is it possible somebody didn't like him and dumped debris down the carb?
I had that happen, only it was sand into the oil pan.

Not too hard to visualize if you consider all the forces involved at higher RPM and a open plenum intake.

I wouldn't have believed it myself except for finding the piece of valve in cylinder#7 that could only have come from #8.

More than likely the Intake valve that broke on #8 broke into two pieces, one going into #5 and one going into #7 but it is still possible it was one piece since the #7 cycle is right after the #5 cycle. At least that's how I would have hallucinated it.

Loose pieces will go where ever there is a nice healthy vacuum being pulled. Unfortunately, I have several examples of this. Luckily I run aluminum heads.

BT