A heads up about Engine Quest heads
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.
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
