Doug Herbert Heads ???
 

Has anyone used Doug Herbert aluminum BBC cylinder heads. I talked with them regarding a complete set for 1200 dollars. This price is very cheap ,wondering if the are a cheap set or they are able to sell them at a big discount.

Are these the Edelbrock marine heads offered through Doug Herbert Performance?

I'm not sure who make them, I spoke with them and they told me a company makes the castings and they finish completeing the heads. He also claims they are not procomp or made oversea's. Anyone knows of these heads.

They are probably Patriot heads. They are a decent head, but I bet the hardware is cheap junk. There is just no way you can use quality parts for that amount of money. Period!
Eddie

What he said! I have $760 just in intake valves (Manley 11842-8), exhaust valves (Ferrea 2120P Inconel) and springs (Comp 943's). That does not include the heads, retainers, locks, guides, labor and miscelaneous stuff. If you want to save a few bucks here and there I totally understand...but your valve train is not the place to start.

I never buy heads fully assembled even AFR, Dart, all the big brands use crappy valve train components
on anything making real power that Ive put together I will always order the heads bare and add my own valvetrain components

I worked at a performace shop for a few years and Ive seen every big name head come through the door assembled from these companies with junk cheap parts,
to include guide plates, retainers, locks, and springs especially

see how much they offer the heads bare that are ready to be assembled
or even just the heads with a set of valves
and find out what brand of valves they offer

X2!

I have a set of the herbert 320cc heads on my 454 jet boat. the only issue i had was the guide plates, the rockers would not line up to the valves,they sent me dart adj. guide plate at no charge. everything else is working great. they are pro comp castings. there in house machine shop does the machining and assembles. I bought them as an up grade over my factory steel heads. I would buy another set for a budget build.

If they are ProComp they are JUNK. You will never get the flow number from them that most others offer right out of the box. I have a friend buy a set of ProComp, and he could not even get shaft rockers to fit right. (poor casting)

I have to take exception to the comment that ALL cylinder head manufacturers use junk components in their heads.
At least at Raylar we use some of the finest valves, cnc'd retainers, locks, viton seals, bronze valve guides, valve springs, guide plates and cnc'd multi-angle valve jobs-bowl blend money can buy. I agree with you for $1200 a pair you won't get this kind of quality as our heads are almost $3K a pair so better does cost more.
But the old saying always applies: "You get what you pay for with
quality!"

That being said their are reasonable mild performance BBC cylinder heads that will sell for the $1500-$1800 a pair range with reasonable quality parts from a few US manufacturers.

As we see and hear about every day are all the performance boaters who buy "cool" "cheap" parts that are $3000 items for $1000 and are usually back on OSO with their problems!


Best Regards,
Ray @ Raylar

the doug herbert heads may not be for everyone but for my applacation they work very well. as far the casting goes, they are very nice. I was suprised myself. ive seen some sets from edelebrock and they were down right UGLY. as far as the flow goes, i was just looking for something better the the stock steel heads. I had mine flow checked and they are way better then stock. I run AFR on my race cars so I do know the difference. but the herbert heads are ok for mild builds.