nickmckinney

The problems the early Patriots had were the guides tops were made too small for the seals to seal against. You can fix this with a blob of RTV when installing new seals. I have heard the newer heads don't have this problem, I have a set coming in for a rebuild so I will learn the changes.

Other problems I found that were not their fault IMHO the intake valve stems are soft and the area below the keepers mushroomed. I had to file the stems down to get the valves out. Any early aftermarket 2V valve spring breaking can usually be traced back to a bad batch that was made by an OEM supplier that supplies many of the aftermarket valves springs no matter whose name is on them. This spring problem has been long fixed.

IMHO their new heads are probably just fine other than they make the ports larger than I like.