Porting small block 915 j-heads

I’ve never seen the books on hot rodding SB Mopars, so I don’t know how much detail they give with specifics about the heads.

Of the various heads I’ve ported from other makes, which is fairly limited I’d say........ the SBM are somewhat unique, in terms of some of their quirks.

Its not that they’re really all that hard to do, and if one had some previous porting experience on other typical OHV V8 heads, much of the same principles apply.

If you don’t have any real experience, and can’t test....... then my suggestions would be........have someone with experience and/or the capabilities to test do one intake/exhaust port on a junk head that you can use as a template to copy.
Or, if they can’t test, but are pretty experienced....... that could still be an option too.

Practicing on the scrap head should give you an idea of how much time will be required for the amount of modification you decide to do.
I’ve seen it where someone starts out with grand intentions...... but by the time they get to the last few cylinders, they just want them done....... and you can see the enthusiasm for grinding on iron has fallen off.

This again falls into that “less is more” mantra.

Personally, I’m a big proponent of getting “the most for the least”.
The most gain, for the least work.

And..... just remember, if the overall combination is good, the car can still go quite well with minimally ported heads.

As an example, my car was running low 11’s with a 383 and unported 906’s(230’s cfm).

The part of the “acquired skill” pertains to your ability to make the port, the shape you want it to be.
Even though when watching someone porting, it looks like one is just letting the grinder flail around inside the port...... it’s actually controlled chaos, and it does take some practice to make the port the same as the shape it is in “your minds eye”.

So theres(at least) two parts to the learning curve........
One part is the understanding of how to reshape the port to get it to flow enough to reach the desired goals for the build.
The other is learning how to physically do the manual labor, and then which tools and techniques are required so you end up with the finished product being what you set out for it to be.

For myself, after I had messed around with it for a couple years, and occasionally having a head tested........ I decided I really needed a way to test/validate the work.
So, I bought a small flow bench. That was 1992.