A heads up about Engine Quest heads

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KevinB

KevinB

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this may be common knowledge, but as a first time engine builder I have some info on these heads that others may find useful.

My EQ heads were ordered bare and built up by my local machinist and head builder. I trust his work. His claim was that as received there were two problems with the heads that he had to correct:

1. The valve guide clearance was too tight, only .001". So he opened them up a little bit

2. When he checked the seats with prussian blue and a vacuum he found most seats didn't hold a vacuum well, and the blue revealed high spots, so he resurfaced them.

That's it! He also did some pocket porting. Pic of my new heads below

IMG_3544.JPG
 
Looks good. I think you can expect new heads, bare or not, to at least need checked and a lot of the time some work done. When you gonna bolt em on?
 
Lelo Dart said:
Looks good. I think you can expect new heads, bare or not, to at least need checked and a lot of the time some work done. When you gonna bolt em on?
Click to expand...

It's gonna be a couple of weeks, I've got two weeks of out of town shows that I'm working starting on Saturday. Plus there's a few items I'd like to order to finish it all up at the same time like: the damper, intake bolts, distributor, fuel pump block off plate, and water pump
 
Yep, a quick stem to guide check and a light lap is really good advice on them.
The OEM assembled heads are known to have light springs as well, so with a tight stem and light spring guess what can happen? :D
 
Peyote said:
this may be common knowledge, but as a first time engine builder I have some info on these heads that others may find useful.

My EQ heads were ordered bare and built up by my local machinist and head builder. I trust his work. His claim was that as received there were two problems with the heads that he had to correct:

1. The valve guide clearance was too tight, only .001". So he opened them up a little bit

2. When he checked the seats with prussian blue and a vacuum he found most seats didn't hold a vacuum well, and the blue revealed high spots, so he resurfaced them.

That's it! He also did some pocket porting. Pic of my new heads below
Click to expand...
This kind is of work is highly recommended for any head period. It has been stated over and over and over here many times.
This is where you hear so many people bad mouth any head in there OOTB state. Sometimes there good, sometimes there bad.
 
As I stated in the original post, this may be common knowledge for others. You say it's been stated over and over but hey it was news to me, I've never heard anything but positives about EQ heads. And I've certainly never read someone say that you should order the heads and then take them to a shop to get worked on
 
Peyote said:
As I stated in the original post, this may be common knowledge for others. You say it's been stated over and over but hey it was news to me, I've never heard anything but positives about EQ heads. And I've certainly never read someone say that you should order the heads and then take them to a shop to get worked on
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Some good info here Peyote , Thank you for posting this knowledge and experience with us :thankyou:
 
On my first motor, I knurled the valve guides, but replaced one exhaust valve guide that was still too loose. The first day on the road the car died going about 40 MPH with an accompanying puff of white "smoke" billowing behind on the highway. Found a dropped exhaust valve, hole in piston, bent connecting rod, and split cylinder bore. Guess I didn't ream the new guide to provide enough valve stem clearance?
 
so why doesn't a known company like Edelbrock or EQ make sure their heads are a true bolt-on OOTB??? Don't make sense to me, if a common machine shop can go over a head and correct the flaws, why not the manufacture????? That way the "fully assembled heads" are true bolt on.
 
318willrun said:
so why doesn't a known company like Edelbrock or EQ make sure their heads are a true bolt-on OOTB??? Don't make sense to me, if a common machine shop can go over a head and correct the flaws, why not the manufacture????? That way the "fully assembled heads" are true bolt on.
Click to expand...

I find it strange as well, especially with buying a built head. If the thing comes to you assembled, you shouldn't have to disassemble, correct, and reassemble to use. But oh well I guess that's just the game.
 
Peyote said:
I find it strange as well, especially with buying a built head. If the thing comes to you assembled, you shouldn't have to disassemble, correct, and reassemble to use. But oh well I guess that's just the game.
Click to expand...
Folks buy a new carb, they don't tare it limb from limb gauging everything, and that's a 400 dollar carb. Guys pay 1500 bucks for heads and have to disassemble and measure. I wish Eddy and EQ could read my post right here, and give me an answer
 
318willrun said:
so why doesn't a known company like Edelbrock or EQ make sure their heads are a true bolt-on OOTB??? Don't make sense to me, if a common machine shop can go over a head and correct the flaws, why not the manufacture????? That way the "fully assembled heads" are true bolt on.
Click to expand...

Peyote said:
I find it strange as well, especially with buying a built head. If the thing comes to you assembled, you shouldn't have to disassemble, correct, and reassemble to use. But oh well I guess that's just the game.
Click to expand...

This is how I handled it.
I got the heads fully assembled but right away I pulled all the spring gear and stem seals.
Then I felt each stem for slop, and there was none but every valve easily slipped down like it wanted to fall out of the head.
I did a light lap on the valves to verify their 3 angle valve job and they were all fine.
I called it good and replaced the stem seals with a known good quality, as well as all the springs, retainers and locks with Hughes gear and away we went.

The cam I have is only about .512 lift, but I have had this thing to 6k multiple times and no problems at all.
You may not need to take every new head to the machinist but at the very least, looking over the basics is a really good idea.
 
TrailBeast said:
This is how I handled it.
I got the heads fully assembled but right away I pulled all the spring gear and stem seals.
Then I felt each stem for slop, and there was none but every valve easily slipped down like it wanted to fall out of the head.
I did a light lap on the valves to verify their 3 angle valve job and they were all fine.
I called it good and replaced the stem seals with a known good quality, as well as all the springs, retainers and locks with Hughes gear and away we went.

The cam I have is only about .512 lift, but I have had this thing to 6k multiple times and no problems at all.
You may not need to take every new head to the machinist but at the very least, looking over the basics is a really good idea.
Click to expand...
I think the point is "why"? 1500 for new eddy heads, and you have to take 'em apart.
"why"... again? When I buy a cam, I don't measure every lobe?
 
318willrun said:
I think the point is "why"? 1500 for new eddy heads, and you have to take 'em apart.
"why"... again? When I buy a cam, I don't measure every lobe?
Click to expand...

So they don't cost $2,000 that's why.
It sucks, but the way it is, and we may very well end up having to measure each lobe in the future as each supplier tries harder and harder to cut costs to stay competitive in the market.
 
Well if that truly was the case, one would think, they would mention that, before someone lost an engine. I mean how much would it cost them to include a little piece of paper that said something like
"please check these over before you install them, on account of our machining is not always the best, and we wouldn't want to see you drop a valve, cuz we don't warranty chit like that."?lol
 
AJ/FormS said:
Well if that truly was the case, one would think, they would mention that, before someone lost an engine. I mean how much would it cost them to include a little piece of paper that said something like
"please check these over before you install them, on account of our machining is not always the best, and we wouldn't want to see you drop a valve, cuz we don't warranty chit like that."?lol
Click to expand...
lol
 
318willrun said:
so why doesn't a known company like Edelbrock or EQ make sure their heads are a true bolt-on OOTB??? Don't make sense to me, if a common machine shop can go over a head and correct the flaws, why not the manufacture????? That way the "fully assembled heads" are true bolt on.
Click to expand...
According to every company that does fully assembled heads, there good to go right OOTB.
 
318willrun said:
Folks buy a new carb, they don't tare it limb from limb gauging everything, and that's a 400 dollar carb. Guys pay 1500 bucks for heads and have to disassemble and measure. I wish Eddy and EQ could read my post right here, and give me an answer
Click to expand...

Cough cough cough... Demon carbs.. cough cough cough... metal buds within the carb, cough X 3, flakes in the passageways. Cough X3 .... and the list of complaints went on and on for awhile.
 
318willrun said:
I think the point is "why"? 1500 for new eddy heads, and you have to take 'em apart.
"why"... again? When I buy a cam, I don't measure every lobe?
Click to expand...
But you do measure the front two though right? Just to make make sure it is what it is in the box. And then to measure pushrod length, valve retainer to stem clearances on all valves....

Once the button is pushed in the cam grinding machine, I think it'll just do its thing as required and programmed....
 
318willrun said:
so why doesn't a known company like Edelbrock or EQ make sure their heads are a true bolt-on OOTB??? Don't make sense to me, if a common machine shop can go over a head and correct the flaws, why not the manufacture????? That way the "fully assembled heads" are true bolt on.
Click to expand...
Being in contact with the national sales manager for EQ as well as building EQ heads for a living, I can answer this for you. EQ heads ARE ready to run when you buy assembled heads! If you get them from Jegs or other bulk sellers, they have the guides diamond honed and valves lapped which will remove any issues with sealing. Valves are all slightly different so each valve is lapped to each seat, thus the reason machine shops label them to each individual hole. As far as the guides go, again each valve is slightly different but more between brands rather than individual valves ie if they honed them to fit Manley valves, they might be too loose on PEP valves....best solution, leave them tight so ALL brands can be correctly fit. When we assemble our heads, we do things a bit differently than the way Las Vegas Machine does the heads for the bulk guys. We only use fully polished valves, the guides are diamond honed, we use a parachute seal on exhaust which gets a bit more clearance as well. We also grind exhaust for slightly larger contact patch which aids in cooling them. The intakes we use are 1.97 as they fit the seat better than the 1.92's. If you want more snort and get the stage III we open up the intake throat and clean up behind the seat. While there is much argument about bronze liners form some builders, we avoid them and have had no issues, we also dont use 2.02 as they are not suited for intake runner in this head. Air speed is much higher with 1.97 and results in better charge, at least in my opinion. As an example, Don at FBO only runs 1.94 in his 500+ HP 10 second Barracuda, the ultimate flow bench.
As far as Edelbrock, they are supposed to be RTR OOTB which some are but most are not....production issues which have kept me form selling anything they make besides Hughes EFI AG and only because its the only show in town....many of you know, including Vic himself, I am not a fan of his parts not bi metal motors, thus why we choose EQ...if 50# is a big deal, put the batt in trunk.

Hope this answers your questions 318 and Peyote
 
Link to the heads you do please.
Cost per pair please.
 
Peyote said:
this may be common knowledge, but as a first time engine builder I have some info on these heads that others may find useful.

My EQ heads were ordered bare and built up by my local machinist and head builder. I trust his work. His claim was that as received there were two problems with the heads that he had to correct:

1. The valve guide clearance was too tight, only .001". So he opened them up a little bit

2. When he checked the seats with prussian blue and a vacuum he found most seats didn't hold a vacuum well, and the blue revealed high spots, so he resurfaced them.

That's it! He also did some pocket porting...
Click to expand...

Magnums came with 5/16, .3125, Diameter stems, OR 8mm, .315, Diameter stems. The stems on any engine should be measured with a micrometer and guides sized for appropriate clearance. Never, would I run any heads that I did not check a couple of valves with lapping compound. Even the Best mess up, I've seen it. I prefer to buy bare heads and build them the way I want.
 
Hey Magnummopar, you say 1.97 valves fit the seat better, does that mean I can throw 1.97 or 1.94 valves in my heads without getting the seats re cut? I have a bare set of 1.92 EQ castings. Just want to clarify
 
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