Chinese Heads

[cordes]

Are these worthless, or can they be decent for a daily driver? I noticed when I rebuilt the turbo on my Lancer that the head must be of Chinese origin. Do the bolts for the intake go into the oil galley like they do on the Chrysler made heads? I think that's where I'm losing the oil from on my Lancer. It's burning it on top of the exhaust manifold around #1 and #2. The plugs are clean, but the oil seems to be coming out with some pressure and there's a very decent amount of it coming out from up there. I've never dealt with a Chinese head before so I'm not sure how to go about this. If it were a Chrysler head, I would be certain that my problem is someone not putting enough sealant on those bolt holes.

[4 l-bodies]

Brian,
I am not aware of any Mopar 2.2 casting actually penetrating the oil galley. The #4 front headbolt intersects the oil galley. It actually feeds the oil galley to the head. There are four intake bolts that are drilled to intersect four headbolt holes. Are those the ones your talking about? They shouldn't be under pressure, but could weep oil if no sealant was used on them. Can you expand on your comment a bit more?
I have a friend that has an aftermarket head. It was fully ported by someone. The exhaust manifold had to be pounded off the studs! Not sure what is going on there, but never seen that before. I could probably get my hands on it a some point in near future if it helps.
Todd

[cordes]

Those intake bolt holes are what I'm referring to. It's not like the oil is squirting out, but it's coming out at a pretty good drip. Probably a couple drops every few seconds or more. This problem has been festering for some time as I've noticed the occasional oil burning since I got the car. I'm thinking the sealant they used wasn't enough, or just not up to the task at hand and has now given away. I guess I should order up supplies to do a head gasket because this one will come off either way. The only question is whether or not the head is good to throw back on. I would really like to enjoy the car this summer, and not get wrapped up in a drawn out project. I can already tell that if the head comes off, it will receive a ported two piece intake and exhaust manifold at the least with a 58mm TB. I had planned on starting to tune the car this summer for some fun, but I don't want to get carried away...

[4 l-bodies]

Brian,
Very possible they used no sealant on those intake bolts.

I was thinking a bit about those four cylinder head bolts recently while I was replacing my original head gasket in my 85 silver 50K GLHT survivor. It lasted 35 years before it started weeping. I was thinking about if you put a thin bead of RTV on top and bottom of headbolt washer to stop the flow of oil down the headbolts, would you need any kind of sealant on intake bolts? Any drawbacks to trying it?
In your case, back the four headbolts out one at time, clean area of oil, and RTV washer and retorque. Would it stop the leak? In your case it might be worth a try. I hate oil burning on exhaust manifolds. That smell get irritating. Years ago my ole 2 cycle lawn boy push mower would just about asphyxiate me every time I cut the lawn. Cleaning the exhaust ports helped, but the real fix was replacing the lawn mower (lol).
Todd

[cordes]

Thanks Todd. It looks like it is coming mainly from the area of #1 and #2. I'm half tempted to just pull the intake bolts one at a time and put sealant on those. It looks like I could reach them pretty easily. I'll report back when I make some forward progress.

[Fox]

i drove 20k miles on one installed on a vnt setup and it shows no signs of problems, idk about the port size but it actually is drive able and doesn't seem slow

[cordes]

That's good to hear. To be fair, this might not be a problem with the head, and I think I have about 25K on the car since I bought it with the head already installed. At this point I think it has been on there for at least 5-6 years.

[thedon809]

My car has a Chinese head on it. It's an earlier Chinese head. The newer ones look kinda bad. It's the head that I was porting in the porting thread.

[cordes]

Well, hopefully mine is one of the good ones. I had never heard anything good about them when guys were first coming across them. I seem to recall some machining problems where the VC bolts up causing oil leaks, etc.

[ajakeski]

The ones I have seen have ports and bowls so small and choppy they can’t flow very well. Time and money spent getting a chinese head to flow like a stock OEM head would be better spent on an OEM head. With so many OEM swirl heads floating around the group, it shouldn’t be too hard to find a replacement. I have a few on the shelf, each would need a trip to the machine shop.

[tommy]

Hey Cordes. Does your head have an "AL" stamped where year should be stamped?

[cordes]

The ones I have seen have ports and bowls so small and choppy they can’t flow very well. Time and money spent getting a chinese head to flow like a stock OEM head would be better spent on an OEM head. With so many OEM swirl heads floating around the group, it shouldn’t be too hard to find a replacement. I have a few on the shelf, each would need a trip to the machine shop.

Yikes. Worse flowing than a stock head? That's not good at all. Actually, that's horrific.


Hey Cordes. Does your head have an "AL" stamped where year should be stamped?

I'll look out there in the next day or two and see what can be seen.

[4 l-bodies]

The ones I have seen have ports and bowls so small and choppy they can’t flow very well. Time and money spent getting a chinese head to flow like a stock OEM head would be better spent on an OEM head. With so many OEM swirl heads floating around the group, it shouldn’t be too hard to find a replacement. I have a few on the shelf, each would need a trip to the machine shop.


Yikes. Worse flowing than a stock head? That's not good at all. Actually, that's horrific.

Brian, Yes WAY worse than stock. They may not all be really bad, but I've seen some that were terrible. That ported one I spoke about maybe comes close to a stock swirl head flow wise. Early on when these first started showing up like 12-15 years ago, IIRC there was an aftermarket head from New Zealand. That one actually looked good. Seems like the quality has got worse instead of better. I remember seeing some pics floating around of aftermarket heads on one of the two forums.
Todd

[cordes]

I have the old Great Lakes Chapter club car head. I might throw that on there. It will be way more work, but I can't stand the thought of worse than stock. If I can't solve this problem by pulling out 4 bolts and throwing on some sealant, off it comes.

[minigts]

The one I had was horrible. The valve seals wouldn't stay in place and the ports were unbelievably out of shape. It looked like someone ported it with their eyes closed, possibly by a small child. Which for a Chinese head is very possible. :)

[cordes]

I had some minor problems with the valve seals, but they've stayed in place once I replaced them. I guess it's been a while since I've checked that though.

[cordes]

I have the old Great Lakes Chapter club car head. I might throw that on there. It will be way more work, but I can't stand the thought of worse than stock. If I can't solve this problem by pulling out 4 bolts and throwing on some sealant, off it comes.


Well, off it comes. The oil was still leaking from above the turbo and I know I can't get to those without pulling the head. As I can't stand the idea of putting a head which flows worse than stock back on the car, the Great Lakes chapter club car head will be going on it. I'm in the process of getting that together now and I hope to have it done by mid next week even with all of this heat.

[cordes]

The ones I have seen have ports and bowls so small and choppy they can’t flow very well. Time and money spent getting a chinese head to flow like a stock OEM head would be better spent on an OEM head. With so many OEM swirl heads floating around the group, it shouldn’t be too hard to find a replacement. I have a few on the shelf, each would need a trip to the machine shop.


Hey Cordes. Does your head have an "AL" stamped where year should be stamped?

Mine says 10, or perhaps 01 where the date usually is.

I inspected the head today and the intake bolts were barely in there on the driver's side. I think it was leaking a little oil out of there, and it was also leaking oil into the exhaust runner on #4, as the valve stem seal had popped up there. The ports in these things are every bit as horrific as you guys suggested. I think going to a factory head from one of these would be like porting it well. I'll keep this thing just in case I'm in a real bind some day, but whoa are these bad.

[minigts]

I don't know if I ever posted pictures of the ports for mine, but it's hard to imagine a worst casting than how mine was.

[cordes]

They don't look too horrible other than the small size and the fact that the intake ports are very much offset to the passenger side of the head. I think some of them have more than 1/16" of the gasket protruding into the port area on the right side when looking down the port into the bowl. It's nuts how even with such small ports they are cut down even more by the gasket restricting things.

[minigts]

Here is the one that was on my car. Notice the things they call ports, I would call a disaster. I will also reiterate, this head had not been ported...at all.


65012

[cordes]

I would say the port shape and casting look worse on yours, but mine are offset severely to the right like what is shown in your picture also. The stock heads are a dream compared to these, which is terrifying.

[Reaper1]

It's close...ish...

[EaZyE426]

I had a cheap aftermarket head on my LeBaron. The cross drill ports looked like they were done with a hand drill. I had an overheat problem with the car when going over 70mph that went away when I switched heads. I still have it in the garage, figured I'd use it for porting practice one of these days.