The casting side of the deal is definitely the most difficult with any of these cast parts. There are some very high end castings outfits near me that I had quote my intake adapter, and the prices I got per adapter were well over $400 for just the raw casting. These outfits would X-ray the castings, vacuum degas the melt, etc, all in an effort to make aerospace quality castings. But in the end they were just too expensive to make the money side of things work. Then there were the smaller, less sophisticated outfits, that offered a really good price but were hit and miss on quality. Fearful of a "Dove" syndrome, I ended up with a casting shop that was kind of in the middle, and so far I've had pretty good luck with them. But casting an intake is a lot different than castings heads or a block. I've spoken with Tod Buttermore on a few occasions and I can certainly empathize with his issues on getting a block cast. The difficulties involved in casting a complex head like the SOHC just add to the riskiness of this venture. But, the guy with the patterns has had it done, and I've seen the parts, so it can be done...
