Lol at this thread. I wasn't "active" on this forum back in 2005...I thought this place and "MR2 Pride" was one in the same, heh. So I hardly came after signing up.
I tried reading through this thread...couldn't take much more when I got to somewhere on page 3. Then attempted to skim through the rest and got bored again at page 6
FWIW (and based on whatever I read in the first 6 pages) - I agree with Ken. I also feel that the gen2 head is great "design" regardless of having shim over buckets. I, personally, haven't seen a head spit out a shim. At least not on any "mild" builds with revs down near 8K rpms. I believe Aaron is only using valvesprigns on his 600whp beast still isn't he?
As far as the intake ports, i'll take those over the gen3 as well. Although, "larger", the TVIS (which some people seemed to have bashed in this thread) is a GREAT piece of equipment. With a gen3 head, you can ONLY have "small port" and "small runner" intake manifolds. Using a gen2 head, I would MUCH rather prefer to have stock runners using a modified plenum while actively controlling TVIS. Properly tuned TVIS makes for greater velocity at lower RPMS when the butterflies are close, then you get the full fledged "big port" volume when they are open on the top end.
It's a win-win situation, i don't know why more gen2 owners don't take advantage of it.