Patriot Performance
now for my patriot experience. installed my heads last october. got them for 1295 + like 200 for gaskets and hardware. i had one spring failure about a month into it and terry next day aired a set of cranes at no charge. Cost = 0. since then been beating on the heads for about a year with no serious issues. i do have an oil consumption issue as i am still running the old valve seals but only because ive been too lazy to get in touch with terry and change them out.
car put out 424 hp and 404 ftlbs SAE and has gone 120.1 and 120.3 mph with a ton of high 119's.
i expect to go deep 11's the winter when i get the 9" i ordered.
i am completely happy with my heads
Let me know when you are ready, and I will get a set of seals on the way to you!!
Heads: $1,200 (did the install myself)
First Spring swap because of broken spring after 4k miles: $380 (labor only), this also included the need for new shaved rockers to clear the retainers because they did not fit right...thanks TSP for help with that one. (Either that or buy $500 rockers as I was told...sigh)
Second Spring swap because of broken spring after 5k miles: $295 (labor) + $115 (tow being 30 miles from the shop), From this swap I found out that my two heads are DIFFERENT and require two different types of seats because they are machined different, this delayed my daily driver to be down an extra 3 days.
Total: $1990
-Did not include MLS gaskets (wish they did)
-Did not include Head bolts (paid TSP for the install kit)
The only thing I have liked about PP is the customer service, which has been excellent.
Power is lacking, 390rwhp with H/C is not very stout, an A4 car on the same dyno as me, same cam, diff heads, same bolt-ons, unlocked put down 7more rwhp, lock it and he'll have even more...
My final opinion is that since I got one of the first run of heads I got the shaft, and I got it hard.
Did PP help me out since they chose shitty springs? Yes, I got new ones for free.
Labor isn't free, nor is downtime.
I initially did heads on the car for more power, so I didn't have to swap springs (this was before Larry's tool was around and made it easy), This has ended up costing as much as ABC's heads and performing a lot less, to me, that is not very cool. The only reason I paid labor for my springs was because it's my Daily Driver and I had to be to work the next day and could not afford to have downtime.
PP could make this up to me by trading me a new set of properly machined, flow tested, nice heads, but I doubt this will happen with me posting this, and I don't expect them to.
Take from my exp what you will, I had a bad one, others have had better.
-Steve
Any way to send me some new ones, charge my CC, then when I return my old ones, get refunded? (like a core charge)? Let me know, PM me if needed. Thanks.-Steve
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