What choices for affordable aluminum heads?

Well, I have now been blessed with a 340 engine I would like rebuild with some performance mods since it's 50 year and an old tired engine. Now with machine shops charging heart attack inducing bills lately, it could be more practical to spend a little more and get some assembled aluminum heads. I'm planning on using performer RPM AIRAP I have in my intake pile and probably just a camshaft upgrade and probably bump the compression up a bit for pump gas and possibly keep the cast crank. I'm posting this here because the racers seem to know two things. How to save money and what parts not to put on a car. I'm not a fan of Edelbrock because of past problems I've had with their heads/carbs, so I would be interested in hearing some other choices.

No personal experience with these heads, but here's an option: Speedmaster Performance. Link is for LA style head with flat tappet springs:

https://www.speedmaster79.com/Mopar...plete-Aluminum-Cylinder-Heads?quantity=1

Speedmaster also has heads with bigger cc intake runners and for magnum style rockers.

If you start reading now you should be done by Sunday night. I’m porting two sets of Edelbrock heads right now and a set of Speedmaster heads soon after. The quality on these heads make Edelbrock heads look like horses azz.

https://www.forabodiesonly.com/mopar/threads/speedmaster-head-thread-index.451807/

i was just wondering if anyone has any experience with speedmaster big block heads, but since i need to read things twice, i guess i will not finish until sometime next week........
John, would you say the big block speedmasters would [somewhat] compare to the rpm plus heads, like your comparison of the small block heads ?
also, how much do you suppose you will cut out of the small block heads ?

No I had a long talk to Speedmaster about their big block heads. Somewhere along the way they lost their direction and now only offer the copy of Edelbrocks Victor heads. Aimed towards a saturated market for stroker type of builds it probably sells one set for every 12 sets of the regular smaller Edelbrock heads. They are looking into it. Not a lot of Mopar guys want to buy a special offset rocker but when ported those heads will flow 370-380 cfm.

You would be better off reading those posts as I put up a lot of pictures. There’s more interest on that site and pictures are so easy to post up.

i'm going to do just that. read the posts on that site.
i'm not much of a small block guy, although i have an E58 360/727 combo on the rack i ran in a 1938 plymouth coupe that weighed 3400 & change with me in it.
bone stock through factory passenger side manifolds, blown up to 2 1/2" pipe to 4" chrome truck/van side pipes with internal mufflers, 3.91 gears and 30" tall L-78 McCreary tires, it went 14.90's at 98mph.
i thought it ran pretty good as it was, but before i could add any speed parts, another guy just HAD to have that car.
so a deal was made without the engine and transmission, and the car left. the setup was put on the rack, and it sits there today.
and the car ? well the guy spent $1800.00 or so on tires and wheels for it, and it sets where he parked it in his garage all those years ago.

In the '90s, I bought a set of the Batten aluminum W2s, 322 CFM @ .700 intake.
They soon after sold out to Indy, who I think turned them into the 360-1 & 360-2 heads after revamping the weird Batten valve guide/spring seat design..
Oddly to me, nobody talks about them; TrickFlow seems to be the top SB head nowadays.
Are they not building/shipping them ?
Looking at the ICH catalog, I'm confused by the differences between the -1 and -2.

Speedmaster and Edelbrock heads will outflow TrickFlow heads with some work.

Speed master orTrickflow is good enough. Not really chasing a horsepower goal, but a replacement head better then stock is fine.

No experience with these beyond just reading the webpage, but something else you could consider
http://mopartsracing.com/parts/Sidewinder.html

I bought a set of speed master loaded cnc’d sb heads on Black Friday. I’m in no hurry, but I’ve called 2xs out of curiosity about them. Nothing..... I went with them as I have my race car stuff and this is just my nice weather daily driver street machine. Was going to change out the crap China parts with good stuff. But, if trick flow would have any heads in the near future that I thought I could actually get I would cancel and get them. Stuck, it’s just a stocker ish 12sec, x headed 340. I thought I would freshen up the top end and didn’t want to have the same money in re doing my x heads. Maybe I will just freshen up my x head stuff myself. I have everything to do so.

Speed Master assembled heads with a little blending looks like it's priced right and would work with a decent compression too. I think these are the cheapest small block heads out there for aluminum and might work out for upgrading in the future if I so desire. Thanks guys, these might be the ones that work out best for me.

Speed Master Small Block Cylinder Heads

Their website mentions raised exhaust ports - hope that doesn't bite you.

90% of guys( or better) are running non offset heads that take factory style rocker gear, headers, intakes, etc…and in most cases don’t overpower production blocks( 340/360)
That is why you don’t see as much of the Indy stuff.
By and large, at that point you are talking expensive aftermarket blocks( Ritter, unobtanium X and R blocks, etc) and licenses and cages setup to run 9’s.
In my case, having done all the above already, I am happy running somewhere in the 10’s with readily available blocks and heads to use at that power level.

Have not decided on headers or manifolds, so that will need to be addresses

HEAD BOLTS / STUDS
Due to the raised (+.625 ) exhaust port location on our heads, +.100 longer bolts / studs are needed next to each port. Use our PCE279.1017 head stud Kit.

But yet it says... "Exhaust Port Location: Standard"

Unless they changed there castings I think there might be a description error?