Need a head for my 2.4L 4cyl motor

Might just have this one rebuilt but would like to find a decent deal on a rebuilt one. For now just want to stay stock and be very frugal! Any suggestions? Big thanks.

You mostly get what you pay for. When it comes to cylinder head recons, I would never allow a workshop to mill a warped head. It should be put through an oven, pressed straight and then given the necessary machining. Reason being is that if the head is warped, it affects the cam journals as well as the face of the head. Depending on how much it has warped it could cause the cam to bind in it's bed which will cause excessive wear and can even break the cam (plenty of guys have experienced broken cams in the 2.4). It can also affect the combustion chambers not having uniform CC volumes (this will wreck how your engine will run by altering compression from cylinder to cylinder). If your head is serviceable and is 'true', you will only need to give it a light skim, valve seat recut, valves machined up and the valve stem seals replaced (dead stem seals are #1 cause of oil consumption and engine blowing smoke on take off). Find a local family owned shop with a good rep and go with them.

solid advice

found a new bare head from rock auto, about $240 delivered if i remember correctly, no jet valve and has the hole for the fuel pump rod with a cover plate if you don't need it. got mine about a month ago, looks and fits great. just assemble with your valves and parts. finally got tired of cracked salvage yard heads.

Rock Auto sells bare heads made by ITM, they are about $260. They are supposedly OK. But do you really want to put a bunch of old parts into the new casting? If you add new parts plus machine work it ends up being a pretty expensive job.

Rock Auto also sells "reconditioned" heads with "new parts" for about $450, but it is hard to know how good they are. "New" heads with complete valve trains are common on Ebay, but few seem willing to trust an assembled head. Almost anything will last a year or two.