Used Diamond W2 Aluminum Heads Yay or Nay?

Buying used is a crap shoot but so is buying the cheapest import parts and expecting them to perform as good as quality parts.

When I bought the SMB I'm rebuilding I knew it would need crank work and three pistons/rods. When I pulled it apart I found I needed one more rod and had a slightly damaged 4th piston that could be heliarced to fix the damage (yes I have repaired pistons before).

The dumb thing I did was neglect to go over the block better as I found the lower end of two cylinders would need sleeves... my fault. So those holes are being sleeved.

I'm repairing the block because it's cheaper to do that than to get a new block and do all the machine work that this block has had done. And I like to fix things... I'm just not a throwaway kinda guy. I'm updating the chassis I'm using after the PO stripped it after sustaining a hit that bent one chunk of tubing I can replace with 1/2 hour's worth of work. Actually I can just heat the tube and pull it back to it's original spec.

Buy to each his own... I used to be one of those guys who bought everything new. But poverty and old age goes a long way in changing one's buying habits. Now I don't replace anything that can be fixed with "Grandpa repairs"...