I have bought 3 sets of EQ heads over the years or more correctly me 2 and my son 1 set. 1st set about 10 years ago bare worked out great. LA pattern. My son bought some fully dressed ones, LA pattern, OK but had another engine issue and with 6k miles sent them thru machine shop and machinist didn't like what he saw, Im not sure if head issue contributed to his issue or not. this set was ~3 years ago.
I then bought a full dressed set with Magnum pattern, shortly after my son got his/ picked these up myself from EQ Chicago warehouse, this set was JUNK, helped ruin a fresh motor. #4 exhaust stuck open, kissed piston, machine shop said all guides were too tight not just that one, had to pound most valves to get them out.... that set had 6 MILES on it and a couple hours break in/ run time sitting in garage when it got parked. that was my wife's daily, a Durango.
not the 1st set of EQs he has seen with problems. He'd bought a set for a customers engine and had valves sticking on the dyno during break in and basically ruined the whole engine.
My biggest fault there, was waiting 2-1/2 years to dig back into that engine, became my garage ornament because I was PO'd at a job gone bad... had I dug right into it, within the year I bought them, I could have gone after them on warranty.... once I discovered issue, I did a Google search and found out they had lotsa issue son heads in about that timeframe.
They shifted (at least some) production to China, there was a distinguishing feature on the outside of the heads that basically "told" where they were made, I discovered that over the years I bought 1 set of each.... I know my original set that I was so happy with were NZ produced, the problem set, the casting came from China... which pizzed me off, even more.
and I have been told since then, by several, to expect to go thru any set of heads before install whether EQ or Indy or Edelbrock or Dart or whoever.... not what you wanna hear when you just spent big dollars n any new set of heads but I guess it is true.
