Patriot's Quality Still Crap (long)
 

Patriot Quality Still Sucks...

After reading a lot on the boards about heads and which ones to go with for my 408 cid. The guys at Texas Speed said warned me about the quality problems with the heads, but I heard on the internet those problems were resolved. After researching for a few weeks I decided to go ahead & try a set of Patriot Performance LS6 heads. They were hard to beat for the price, and I was ready to get the stock heads off of my 408! I ordered a set through Scoggin Dickey since Texas Speed no longer carries them and was really anxious to get them in and on the car. Joseph from Texas Speed & I had planned to do the head swap this week. Well, after picking up the heads and pulling them out of the box, I had a huge surprise. The first thing I noticed were the bolt holes where the rocker arms are supposed to be bolted on. They've been heli-coiled! All I can figure is that they were misdrilled the first time, so they did the half-ass patch job to sell as new to some poor schmo. Unfortunately, I'm the poor schmo.

After seeing this, I had the guys at Texas Speed look them over for any other potential problems. We screwed a set of spark plugs into both heads, checking them for proper fitment, and one of the spark plug holes on each head have been drilled wrong! You can see in the picture below where the spark plug on the left screws into the chamber MUCH farther than the one on the right. It's almost in line with the deck surface of the head!!! You can also check out the pushrod holes in the heads. Check 'em out in the pic of the heli-coiled rocker holes. It looks like a blind man was grinding on them!

At this point I'm just pissed off. I'm supposed to get a quality set of heads for the money I spent, and they can't even drill the friggin' holes right. What should I expect from the quality of the CNC work?! I had read some guys on the boards being happy with their Patriot Performance heads, but apparently they were wrong. The bolts for the rockers won't even screw into the heli-coiled holes worth a crap. They get hung up every turn or so. I'm still so pissed that they would send crap like this out the door, in hopes that the ignoramous that bought them won't notice! What if I was running a dome piston and the piston smacked the spark plug? It's apparent that they don't care because if they did they wouldn't have shipped out a sh*tbox set of heads like these. I'm all for a quality set of heads for a great price, but these are total junk. I'm going to send them back for a full refund. I figured all of you would want to see just what you're getting when you buy a set of Patriot heads. I highly doubt mine are the only set of screwed up heads, so I'd encourage all of you that bought heads to check them before you install them! Well I guess I'll go racing this weekend without a set of stock heads again....ARGGGGHHH

Helicoils are stronger then regular threads in aluminum. I wouldn't be concerned about the enlarged pushrod holes but I would be about the spark plug.

when did you buy yours? the head that got sent out to me was fine, no mechanical defects and they were checked and flowed by Steve @ RED.

You know its just plain heresay. But some little bird said that they might be getting blems from GM for a dirt cheap price. That sounds about right after what you said.

Brandon

They arrived last week late.

Wow I am so glad I didnt buy there 6.0L heads. Sorry to hear about that. I would demand my $ back.

and keep the heads. u could make a nice table with em:jest:

Heli-coils are stronger like was said earlier. Edelbrock does all of thier heads that way, which is one reason I like thier heads overall. The plug issue is another story though, if you were to run those heads you would have to use washers on those plugs that had that problem which isnt a real problem but is uncool to have to do that with a fresh set of heads. I am sure Gunnar will chime in on this thread and will probably rectify the problem quickly because they do have good customer service. I am not a cheerleader for anyone so dont look at my post that way because I would post this no matter the brand name head in question. I would be disappointed too if it would have happened to me also but shouldnt be a problem to solve. Good luck with your set up. :)

Is Patriot going to start shipping 2 shorter spark plugs with the heads for the #2 and #8 cylinders? I'm not too concerned about the thread inserts, I figured the threads were screwed up being the reason for the fix or from not being heat treated... If it was for strength you would think every aluminum threaded hole would have the insert installed, right? :secret:

I own Edelbrock heads for my Turbo-Mustang and every thread is helicoiled not just the rockers FWIW.

Airplane mechanics commonly helicoil all important threads in an plane's engine. Our engines don't require the extra strength and it's cost prohibitive to helicoil when it's unnecessary.

This really sucks...look like GM defects to me. :confused:

Or maybe they just forgot to include the washers needed to keep the plugs from screwing that far in... :guns:

Will we see 10's out of the 408 this year? :devil:

I just installed a set of these heads on my car this week, I haven't fired it up yet, Still waiting on some parts to arrive, but I did not check the spark plug holes on mine before installing them, Hope mine are good. Is there any way to check for the spark plug problem without removing the heads. BTW mine did not have the heli-coils inserted, but probably needed to about half the threads holding the rockers to the heads felt like they wanted to cross thread going in. Kind of worried now!

Take you a cloths hanger and bend it into a small L shape and insert it into the plug hole and hook it in the chamber and measure them that way and then compare it to the plugs. If the rockers torqued down fine youl be good to go more than likely. Hope this helps ya out.

Wow....What a surprise! :eyes:

Sorry to hear about your misfortune...as the old saying goes though, "you get what you pay for."

Thank you, I'll try that here shortly!

There is now way I would fix a new set of heads with a close hanger. :jest:

Patriot buys the castings,then commisions them to be machined for Patriot.This has nothing to do with GM.It just shows there is no quality checks performed.The general public are gunnie pigs. :eyes:

Great customer service is not replacing a fucked up part. :barf:

Patriot is 100% responsible for this.Looks like they shouldn't have dumped Canfield :jest: .They still have the same QC problems.I guess its easier to blame it on someone else. :eyes: This just shows I was not responsible for the past QC problems,like they tell all of their customers.

Thats not a heli-coil in there that is called a time cert made by engine tech.They are a lot stronger then a heli-coil and are use in top fuel engines.The spark plug no excuse for that and did you have the heads bolted down because in your pic if they are new out of box why is there copper gasket sealer on the head serface.