[bygddy]

Originally Posted by Camaro_Nut2001

I am just learning the porting process and have practiced some on a set of crappy "882" heads and am now porting my "062" Vortecs. Let me tell ya, this is a learning experience to say the least lol. It was brought to my attention that my ports were not the same from the pictures I had posted. I went back and got them as close to the same, at least to my eyes, as I could. The only advice I can give you is take your time, check your work often, try to imagine the air coming in and going out and focus on that area and the most important is, enjoy yourself. Hot Roddin is what I trully love and cherish every second that I am in the garage. Don't get me wrong, lol, as I am nervous about ruining a good pair of heads and/or making them worse but, thats what learning is all about. Also, I value the knowledge of alot of our members and read, have read and will read alot more on heads in every aspect. Good luck to you and I am quite sure you will do a fine job on your porting.

Good advice......
And from experience I can tell you, take your time, try and visually match as best you can, they will work,and well. I have done 2 sets of heads now, the first set were 416 castings,and I had zero invested so I had no fear, I had a ton of time in them, but that was by choice,and because I'm a complete newb at it lol. So i kept going back over to try and make everything uniform, and when I thought I was done, I wasn't, and kept at it until the flow paths looked uniform, and the pushrod pinch was very well narrowed and looked as minamly restricted as I could get it. This heads went on with a small cam, a qjet Carb, and Shorty headers, and I was shocked at how well it performed. You will be too. If you listen to the "more money then brains" club about cnc machines and afrheads and the best parts you can buy, your ride will never see pavement .....it will be a pretty pile of parts on a bench....so roll up your sleeves, dig in deep, and have fun. Your not going to hurt anything, your going to have fun and learn, and you WILL make more power in doing it.
Rant over

[hcompton]

Not sure why anyone is telling you the ports dont need to match they surely do need to match. If they dont it will unbalance the engine at high rpm and it will make less power. One bad port can drag along and slow the engines total rpm loosing a thousand rpm can mean 100 hp.

If you use a shop vac to suck the chips down the port andout the valve side you can kinda see how the air flows incents or a cigg can give you a smoke trail to follow. Stright line of smoke means good flow stalling or circling air is poor flow. But way to much to explain in this little box.

Also keeps iron dust from causeing damage around the shop. Forgot to mention this but dont port near your painted cars the rusting chips will screw up your paint. Also not good for lungs and any other things you can think of.

Less is more just cut the casting marks smooth and flat and stick the heads on the car. Also try to do all the ports at once one cut per port makes them easier to match up and prevents you from spending 20 hours on the first port and needing another 120 hours of work to complete.

[bygddy]

Originally Posted by hcompton

Not sure why anyone is telling you the ports dont need to match they surely do need to match. If they dont it will unbalance the engine at high rpm and it will make less power. One bad port can drag along and slow the engines total rpm loosing a thousand rpm can mean 100 hp.

If you use a shop vac to suck the chips down the port andout the valve side you can kinda see how the air flows incents or a cigg can give you a smoke trail to follow. Stright line of smoke means good flow stalling or circling air is poor flow. But way to much to explain in this little box.

Also keeps iron dust from causeing damage around the shop. Forgot to mention this but dont port near your painted cars the rusting chips will screw up your paint. Also not good for lungs and any other things you can think of.

Less is more just cut the casting marks smooth and flat and stick the heads on the car. Also try to do all the ports at once one cut per port makes them easier to match up and prevents you from spending 20 hours on the first port and needing another 120 hours of work to complete.

We wernt saying they don't need to match, just that your not going to get exact, and that's OK, the OP was essentially being told that hand porting is a waste of time, and that with today's cnc machines or high dollar out of the box heads, that it was a waste of time and performance will be unimproved doing it by hand. And that's ridiculous, yes, always try and match, and don't go and just hog the the hell out of the ports, but with some time, and patience, and lots of reading and learning what works, he isn't going to hurt anything, and will improve flow, and performance. Your right, a clearly bad port that doesn't come close to flowing what the next port does is bad, but your going to get close, from experience, your going to go back to the first couple you did, and see they aren't the same as the ones you just did, and your going to work a little more, and get everything close. And they will make power.....bottom line is, just because its old fashioned or antiquated doesn't mean it won't work. If that were the case my wife would have replaced me with a 20yr old pool boy years ago.

[1Gary]

Originally Posted by bygddy

We wernt saying they don't need to match, just that your not going to get exact, and that's OK, the OP was essentially being told that hand porting is a waste of time, and that with today's cnc machines or high dollar out of the box heads, that it was a waste of time and performance will be unimproved doing it by hand. And that's ridiculous, yes, always try and match, and don't go and just hog the the hell out of the ports, but with some time, and patience, and lots of reading and learning what works, he isn't going to hurt anything, and will improve flow, and performance. Your right, a clearly bad port that doesn't come close to flowing what the next port does is bad, but your going to get close, from experience, your going to go back to the first couple you did, and see they aren't the same as the ones you just did, and your going to work a little more, and get everything close. And they will make power.....bottom line is, just because its old fashioned or antiquated doesn't mean it won't work. If that were the case my wife would have replaced me with a 20yr old pool boy years ago.

She did replace you with the muscle bound pool boy,you just don't know about it.LOL

To just go in and open up a port and not even be able to check it with a home built flow bench is what I said.RHS has yrs of modeling ports by hand as a ref to up load into a CNC program and has computer models it uses as well.They have heads around that are test models under continuous R & D.It's the little things that add up to huge gains.I am just site'ing RHS as only one progressive aftermarket company doing this,there are more than that.

Hot Rodding to me has always been build the best and learn the current tech.We have been in the top 4 in 9.90 racing for a very long time.Over 20 yrs.Our best this season in a now RED was in the 1/8 with a Alky 632 was 5.65@150mph.I do think I know a thing or two about the history of drag racing and the tech past and current.

[vinniekq2]

re home porting.
I dont discourage anyone from trying anything,,,,Ive done it myself. My only point is or question:How do you know how much in the way of improvement you gain by home porting?
I start with a 150 HP engine,add better intake carb,cam,headers=now I have 250HP
the home ported pos heads add how many more HP?lets say another 30,now round that up to 50 with a super tune.I now have a solid 300 HP engine(unvarified)
this equals good experience,because,,,,next time I will start with a 300 HP engine and apply my past experience.

when you start to make bigger power IE more than 1 HP/cube then parts will need more attention to detail.The more HP you make,the more it costs per HP.This is where the phrase "no replacement for displacement" comes from.We all have to work within a certain budget and these discussions need to be geared towards that part of the engine build.
With me I zero balance all engines as to me,the smooth running,especially at higher RPM and the added life make that process essential to me

maybe with you,a hydraulic cam,though giving up power is worth it for the nasty idle and not having to make adjustments

[hcompton]

Originally Posted by bygddy

We wernt saying they don't need to match, just that your not going to get exact, and that's OK, the OP was essentially being told that hand porting is a waste of time, and that with today's cnc machines or high dollar out of the box heads, that it was a waste of time and performance will be unimproved doing it by hand. And that's ridiculous, yes, always try and match, and don't go and just hog the the hell out of the ports, but with some time, and patience, and lots of reading and learning what works, he isn't going to hurt anything, and will improve flow, and performance. Your right, a clearly bad port that doesn't come close to flowing what the next port does is bad, but your going to get close, from experience, your going to go back to the first couple you did, and see they aren't the same as the ones you just did, and your going to work a little more, and get everything close. And they will make power.....bottom line is, just because its old fashioned or antiquated doesn't mean it won't work. If that were the case my wife would have replaced me with a 20yr old pool boy years ago.

Hopefully neither she or the pool boy is a member of the forum. LOL

Got ya yeah cnc is like stage one porting for most engines. Most high end work is hand done. Cnc is popular becasue they dont have to pay for another employee. But unless the head can rotate around the bit 360 in all directions. Its only going to be able to do so much. I have cnc combustion chambers in my procomp heads it is the cheapest way to make a good combustion chamber. Not the best just the cheapest.

Cnc equals cheap not best quaility. Many companies hand port there heads from the factory ferrari and suzuki come to mind. They cnc first and sendin the handporter guys to make it perfect.

Porting is similiar in skill to welding. You can weld everyday for 20 years and be a master welder. Stop doing it for 10 years and pick up welder again student will run smoother builds than you until you get your muscle memory back in shape. Yes just about anyone can weld but not everyone can make pretty welds. And just like porting robots and computers cant do it. One look at a honda sport bike frame the welds are perfect and clean as can be. These are all hand done by welding gods at honda. Truat me they have tried to teach the machines to weld like them but it doesnt work.

Becoming a great porter is pretty easy get large stackof heads and start cutting. After you have trashed a pickup truck load worth of heads you will be ready for flow bench and dyno results. Yep ok results can be gotten from quicky job but master port work like changing the shape and size is best left to pro. If you want to make the port bigger increase the valve size and make the port that much larger all the way out. Keepingthe same basic shape and size.

[bygddy]

Originally Posted by vinniekq2

re home porting.
I dont discourage anyone from trying anything,,,,Ive done it myself. My only point is or question:How do you know how much in the way of improvement you gain by home porting?
I start with a 150 HP engine,add better intake carb,cam,headers=now I have 250HP
the home ported pos heads add how many more HP?lets say another 30,now round that up to 50 with a super tune.I now have a solid 300 HP engine(unvarified)
this equals good experience,because,,,,next time I will start with a 300 HP engine and apply my past experience.

when you start to make bigger power IE more than 1 HP/cube then parts will need more attention to detail.The more HP you make,the more it costs per HP.This is where the phrase "no replacement for displacement" comes from.We all have to work within a certain budget and these discussions need to be geared towards that part of the engine build.
With me I zero balance all engines as to me,the smooth running,especially at higher RPM and the added life make that process essential to me

maybe with you,a hydraulic cam,though giving up power is worth it for the nasty idle and not having to make adjustments

I guess that's a better way to address it, from my standpoint, I started with junk, and a dirt budget, and I have zero doubt the work I did made an improvement, for what it was, cheap and dirty, and it worked, now would I take my virtually non existent experience and hit a set of quality heads looking for an improvement? Jesus no, its more likely I would go back words, and really, I wouldnt know better, would just complain about my high dorral maximum ported heads performing poorly.....I'm not that foolish however....but Gary is saying that he believes in good parts, and learning the tech of today, and utilizing it. And i agree, but some of us can't.....he can save, buy the best, be ahead of the curve even, but it doesn't make it the be all of hot rodding......his way is good, and someday I hope to be there, but for now, home ported junk heads, hyd flat cams, and some common sense means I can play too......
And for the record, that pic of your car I your avi makes me wanna cry every time I see it lol......I swear I'm gonna finish this damn truck, drive it this summer, and sell it to buy a stick C3 and make a vicious roadracer version......I blame you

[bygddy]

[QUOTE=hcompton;1631329]Hopefully neither she or the pool boy is a member of the forum. LOL
[QUOTE]
I swear to god I'm gonna get a truck full of sand and fill the damn thing in lol.....
Or hire a pool boy for her, and a maid for me

[vinniekq2]

maids are like cylinder heads,the chinese knock offs are more plentiful and cheaper

[hcompton]

[quote=bygddy;1631335][QUOTE=hcompton;1631329]Hopefully neither she or the pool boy is a member of the forum. LOL

I swear to god I'm gonna get a truck full of sand and fill the damn thing in lol.....
Or hire a pool boy for her, and a maid for me

One truck load of sand? Are you sure you even need a pool boy. Maybe the wife is telling you hes the pool boy. LOL

[bygddy]

Originally Posted by vinniekq2

maids are like cylinder heads,the chinese knock offs are more plentiful and cheaper

You just made coffee come out of my nose laughing....and I can't even tell the wife whats so funny.....dammit...lol

[bygddy]

[quote=hcompton;1631386][quote=bygddy;1631335]

Originally Posted by hcompton

Hopefully neither she or the pool boy is a member of the forum. LOL


One truck load of sand? Are you sure you even need a pool boy. Maybe the wife is telling you hes the pool boy. LOL

Definition of lazy poor white trash, 24ft pool, and still to lazy to clean it..lol

[1Gary]

It has been a 40yr partnership in a racing operation NOT all of it gravy train parts for sure.Some one dyno pull type heads in horse trading,but current tech.And certainly a ability to recognize the reason why they where valued as they where.We too have ported many,many,heads ourselfs.In the twilight of my racing career on the edge of retirement,I got to say I look back and know for sure all the hard work we did to get as far as we have.

I want and encourage everyone I come in contact with to learn as much as they can hands on.Thing is there are some basic's needed to get the results and I insist one of them is the home built flow bench.It is a step needed to be taken building a flow bench with returns that just can't be ignored.That is my suggestion to this O/P to do first.

[hcompton]

Originally Posted by 1Gary

It has been a 40yr partnership in a racing operation NOT all of it gravy train parts for sure.Some one dyno pull type heads in horse trading,but current tech.And certainly a ability to recognize the reason why they where valued as they where.We too have ported many,many,heads ourselfs.In the twilight of my racing career on the edge of retirement,I got to say I look back and know for sure all the hard work we did to get as far as we have.

I want and encourage everyone I come in contact with to learn as much as they can hands on.Thing is there are some basic's needed to get the results and I insist one of them is the home built flow bench.It is a step needed to be taken building a flow bench with returns that just can't be ignored.That is my suggestion to this O/P to do first.

That flow bench cost 800 bucks to build that price would easily cover the cost of porting. A good one that can be used for many heads over years of time will cost 1500 bucks and be well under spec for most actual flow benchs.

I agree a good flow bench is a big help. But not really needed to get started. Now after you got your tools together and know how to use the them a flow bench will start to be more useful.

[Project89]

Originally Posted by hcompton

That flow bench cost 800 bucks to build that price would easily cover the cost of porting. A good one that can be used for many heads over years of time will cost 1500 bucks and be well under spec for most actual flow benchs.

I agree a good flow bench is a big help. But not really needed to get started. Now after you got your tools together and know how to use the them a flow bench will start to be more useful.

u can make a simple flow bench out of a shopvac , ford 0-5v maf sensor a volt metter and some plywood/2x4's


while not an actual flow bench u can use it to see any gains picked up in each port and use it to get all ur ports close to flowing the same