My view on something like a SBM head is that it’s just not that much different than the stuff he’s often working on.
When it didn’t show a noticeable improvement after about the 4th of 5th time on the bench, I’d have taken that as a sign, along with my previous years of messing with that stuff(like he has), and know it’s time to stop.
But, he was a good choice for that job.
I’ve seen him spend countless hours messing with “science experiment” heads in the past.
The 24hrs he has messing around with R&D on that one intake & exhaust port is more time than I’d spend on the complete porting job.