Anyone actually running one of the Chinese Prothe heads?

[Dakotakid]

Anyone running one of these?
Anyone running one of these for prolonged period?
Anyone running one of these for long period with good results?

Do they come with guides which have been properly reamed to size?
Just wondering. Haven't heard anyone say anything related to this for a long time.
Do not confuse with AMC.

[8v-of-fury]

Smokey Eddy ran one on his 1.6/1.9 build for quite a while, and he was definitely not kind to it ! LOL

[RabbitJockey]

yeah and now crazy andy has that head on his aaz, it isn't running yet tho.

but andy works a good pace so long as he has the parts, shouldn't be too much longer.

i had an amc head

[bbob203]

local sketchy shop uses them. if they had a high failure rate id imagine theyd stop.

[vanbcguy]

A cylinder head is a complicated enough casting that it's unlikely it's a complete POS - there just wouldn't be any point in making it, even for a dodgy foreign supplier.  There's a very good chance the castings are actually being made for / used by some more reputable vendors, kind of like how Prothe's pistons are just fine (though the rings are crap).

Now, on the other hand the cam / lifters / valve springs in the "loaded" head - those I wouldn't be too keen on using.  Failure of a cylinder head results in needing to do a head job but usually little other damage (unless it tosses a precup!), failure of a valve can completely decimate your bottom end.

[Blocksmith]

Yeah, I would just save the couple hundred extra and opt for a more reputable head like a Topline. Or have a genuine vw head rebuilt. On a Chinese head, the precups in particular scare me--my brother is a materials science engineer, and has very little good to say about Chinese metallurgy based on the tests he has done on their tools and so forth.