Looks like I'm not the only AFR owner with premature valve guide wear problems.
http://www.ffcars.com/
http://forums.corral.net/forums/
I'm going to have him replace all the guides and the faulty intake valves. I'll then go thru the whole valvetrain geometry, recheck the pushrod length, recenter the pushrod guides, etc.
I talked to the machinist today for a bit, trying to figure out why this happened. He said it looked like the geometry was ok. I asked if he thought the wrong length pushrods could have done it. His response was that it *could* but on my heads, the valves looked like I had "nailed" the length correctly (his word, not mine). He said again that he would expect to see this much valve guide wear after 50-100k miles - not 500 miles. There is also valve stem wear. The valves are stainless steel - the guides are bronze. There should not be wear on the valve stems unless it was not lubricated correctly when the heads were assembled. He didn't have any other ideas other than a defect in manufacturing.
AFR was supposed to call me back today but didn't. It is costing me $200 in parts and $300 in labor to repair these heads that likely were defective from the factory.