Is it ok to copy a W5 head and make it better or are we just mad at Speedmaster

The fact is, a large majority of products made in China are made for American or Western-allied companies. China has the cheapest "skilled" labor in the world and is able to produce/provide material at lower costs. American companies design their products here and then have them produced there to keep costs down. Even with all the shipping back and forth and the cost of importing whatever it is back here, apparently it is still cheaper than doing everything here in the US.

That's the unfortunate truth. Until that equation gets turned around to where it no longer makes sense for American manufacturing businesses to follow that model we're going to be stuck with the majority of things we buy being made in China. I hate it and we all do but its the way of the world right now.

In fact, I own an awesome set of heads that are based on the same raw Chinese castings that Speedmaster uses. They also happen to be the same basic casting that Edelbrock uses. The company that made my heads designed the ports and chambers in Michigan. They receive the raw castings and machine them here with their program. The valve gear is all high-quality stuff like PAC, Ferrea, etc. The only thing 'inherently Chinese' about them is the raw casting and probably the pallets they come on.

But because of that, these heads were relatively cheap compared to some of the other options out there. If they were cast here they would have easily been double the cost which would have put them out of my reach. Not enough buyers of small block Mopar parts of any flavor out there to justify the cost of having everying "Made in the USA".

The problem with the valve body copy in question is that Speedmaster didn't even try to cover up the fact that they took this guys design and sold it under their name. Summit and Jegs put their logo on things that are exact copies of other manufacturers designs and sell them for less, They're not manufacturers themselves, they're only retailers. Both companies have been doing that since day one and it's a well-known and accepted fact. That idea has also been going on in most every business since the dawn of commerce - it's alll about the money.

The problem was Speedmaster basically took some of this particular manufaturer's existing stock of parts, crossed his name off it and put theirs on it. It's one thing to take a bare, generic casting that's available to anyone and put your own name on it but using existing inventory produced by someone else with their name already on it, crossing it out and slapping your own name on it to sell for your profit is the issue. That raises all sorts of questions about Speedmaster's busines practices and what they're willing to do to make a buck. That's not an honest mistake either, that's blatant misrepresentation or even theft. It's a bad deal and unfortunate for everyone.