Thinking outside the box
You can buy a set of 300+cfm aluminum Escalade, bone-stock, heads for an LQ-9 Chevy truck motor for $800.00, ready to bolt on.
You'd think that Mother Mopar would want to counter that with SOMETHING.
Paying more than double that for for some roughly equally-flowing (ported)aftermarket (Edelbrock) heads doesn't set right with me.... or, a lot of other people, I am sure.
Here is a link the the GM LQ9 245 HP & 380 lbs./ft. torque engine
Here is a link to the article that show & tells about the Escalade aluminum head
You're right it doesn't sit well with me either. These heads were easy for GM to produce because they already had the plans and tooling from the LS7 head. They are simply a modified for street/truck use LS7 head with changes made to fit the production line parts. Much like when Mopar modified the W2 race head to work on the small block (Magnum heads). The Magnum heads were a great leap forward in their time, but it was delveloped long ago and started in production in 1993. Unfortunetly for the Mopar camp the LS7 GM head is/was a new design with tons of technology
and made of aluminum.
The HEMI is now Mopars small block. If Mopar counters it with anything it'll be for the HEMI engine series (5.7L, 6.1L, new 392 HEMI). The HEMI is a great engine stock and has the potential to be an awesome engine, however Chrysler has made it rediculously difficult for the aftermarket to help out. It hurts even more that Chrysler doesn't offer much for it and what it does offer are simple and usually poor upgrades that they charge "Viper" like prices for.
I do not think your "comparison" of the new LQ9 GM truck engine to the 5.9L is logical.
The LA & Magnum engine series have been out of production for a while now. Ma Mopar isn't going to gain anything by coming out with a new wonder head for these old engines. They have put a lot of money into producing & marketing the new HEMI engines. That was/is Mopars "new age" & performance engine. It has "high flow" aluminum heads already on it and they make good HP right out of the box (or truck...lol).
For $1,000-$1,600.00 you can find a clean complete HEMI engine (with your aluminum "high flow" heads already attached. Just get a carbureted intake manifold (~$500.00?) for it, a good tuned carb (~$600.00?), and some headers (~$400.00?) and you have a pretty power street engine.
It'd take some well laid out plans to get a stock 5.9L to that same power level. In my opinion you'd be a lot further ahead with the new HEMI engine too.
For the initial investment of puchasing/installing the above "stock" 5.7L HEMI you could build a powerful 5.9L.
But if something should fail internally in your engine it will be a whole lot easier/cheaper to go and source another used/stock 5.7L HEMI long block then to build another 5.9L long block to match the HEMIs power.
The HEMI engines are still in production so parts availability are becoming easier and cheaper to find with each passing day. The aftermarket is finally growing for these engines. As of late there is a pretty good boom because they are getting so reasonable to buy and run.
Don't get me wrong, I am not saying everyone should toss their 360s and go buy a HEMI.
However there is no disputing that the HEMI is a superior engine over the dated 5.9L.
I am currently running two 5.9L engines and several 360 LA engines. The 5.9L in my 2001 Ram 1500 QC 2wd has Mopar Performance R/T heads (1.96"
I / 1.625"
E), Spectre Performance true cold air intake system, Dynomax Super Turbo 3" mandrel bent dual exhaust, NTK oxygen sensors, 180 degree Stant SuperStat, and a few other goodies with a few more to come. I like these engines alot and even race (at the strip for fun, few weekends a year) a 360 LA engine with a small B&M supercharger on it.