As many people know, the stock small block Mopar LA and Magnum engines suffer from a poor head design that fosters cracking and breakage in the combustion chambers, as well as poor flow and dinky valves. But there is an affordable solution.
Here you can see the cracking associated with the thin areas above the valves in the chamber. That’s not supposed to do that in real life.
This is the product of a crack during operation that blasted a chunk out of the valve.
However, to the rescue is good old capitalism.
These heads by enginequest aren’t just a replacement, but they’re also an upgrade. They feature a better designed water jacket that’s thicker in the areas where they need it, and the ports are revised for better flow. They can be fitted with oversized valves, also.
When I bought the beater, it suffered from all the common ailments of the magnum engine, including the blown out heads. So, I did my homework and ordered a bare set of these and filled them with replacement valves and springs from Melling, assembled it all myself, and it worked really well.
It was a big mess for a while. But that’s how any project is.
The enginequest parts fulfill all the basic things you want them to fulfill:
- You want all the locations correct, like ports and water passages.
- You want all the bolt holes for accessories in the right places.
- You want all the machining to be precise, not accurate or in the ballpark.
I give these high recommendations since they resolved all the issues on the beater that were related to corporate cheapness in the engine, and got my 99′ Ram back on the road with no problems. In truth, they are a higher quality part than the stock stuff put on by the factory.
The downside is that they come from down under after being cast, I believe, in China. So, if you’re against all things China, you might wanna not. Or just pretend they’re from NZ.
I would buy these again in a heartbeat and recommend them to anyone looking to hot rod an LA or Magnum engine who doesn’t have the coin for aluminum heads.