Mild home head porting advice .

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jimmer

jimmer

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I have some u heads 2.02 1.6 Im planning on trying to home port mildly.
I need some advice and pics from the more experienced guys on here.
I have never attemted to port heads before.
I have a die grinder .
What do I need ?
What all do I clean up on the heads ?
 
Practice on a set of junk heads first. You don't want to make the whole port size bigger. mainly just smooth out any lumps or casting flash. Use a set of intake and exhaust gaskets to mark the outline of the ports and only open them up no more then 1 1/2 " into the ports. Open every thing up too much and you actually lower the velocity of the a/f and will lose bottom end torque. Just like if you just got a new welder and didn't have any/much experience welding, you wouldn't weld up a roll cage as your first project. Porting kits are available on line that have the different grits and shape of sanding rolls . Practice, practice,practice. The first set of heads that I ported were on a Chevy with a 350. They looked good to me but after I installed them, the car had zero power! Too much removed and the car ran like a slug. Good thing it wasn't my car and it was a Chevy anyway.
 
I understand the basic gaskit match deal.
I have ported heads I paid others to port.
I really just want to clean the heads up a bit.
MoparLeo said:
Practice on a set of junk heads first. You don't want to make the whole port size bigger. mainly just smooth out any lumps or casting flash. Use a set of intake and exhaust gaskets to mark the outline of the ports and only open them up no more then 1 1/2 " into the ports. Open every thing up too much and you actually lower the velocity of the a/f and will lose bottom end torque. Just like if you just got a new welder and didn't have any/much experience welding, you wouldn't weld up a roll cage as your first project. Porting kits are available on line that have the different grits and shape of sanding rolls . Practice, practice,practice. The first set of heads that I ported were on a Chevy with a 350. They looked good to me but after I installed them, the car had zero power! Too much removed and the car ran like a slug. Good thing it wasn't my car and it was a Chevy anyway.
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I watched that thanks 318 will run
I am hoping that some of the old school guys on here will chime in.
 
A little reading and info for ya.
diyPorting.com

I did mine, I admit I was a tad nervous at the beginning, but settled into it fairly well. My goal was to clean them up without being too aggressive.

I cleaned up both intake and exhaust ports, I then polished the exhaust ports and the chamber itself. You want to go lightly if you do the chambers as any material you remove can affect your CR. You also need a junk I and E valve if you do so to protect the seats. My heads were milled some so I wasn't too concerned.
 
jimmer said:
I watched that thanks 318 will run
I am hoping that some of the old school guys on here will chime in.
Click to expand...
I've been home porting heads a long time. Bowl area for a mild clean up is most important. I demonstrated that in my 2nd video.
 
If I had to port with an electric grinder, I'd quit. I use air, which is a pain in the *** but I get a much better finish.

Either way, you have to have some way to slow the grinder down depending on materiel, tooling and desired finish.

I almost never use a stone but I do have them. I always start with a carbide and finish with a paper roll.
 
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I'll throw in a few photos to give you an idea.

View attachment 1715154305
 
My rule is never go down, always take it out of the roof never grind the floor , you can knock the bunps off but that is it. Spend your time on the roof and walls.
My 2 cents
 
What kind of advice ?
Work the straight side ssr just off the seat to a more vertical shape than the buldge it is and at the last 1/3 from the top...ever so slightly lay it back and leave a lip, don't round the top of the ssr to the floor, you want a definitive steep ramp.
Thin the guide, shorten its height about 5/16 and grind the guide tail to mimic the set angle.
Open the rest of the bowl , keep it a little smaller than the seat, use the throat cut to guide you and leave an even .100 of throat cut for now, don't grind too much on dogleg side of bowl, go straight up from throat cut on straight side of bowl.

Hard to put it into words, so be conservative. Tall is good, laid back too far is bad that you cannot come back from.
 
So for thoose who did simple home porting.
Did you notice a difference in performance ?
 
Thought I'd post some photos of my 273 heads. When I built my 273 a few years ago i had a friend that works at a Speed shop that specializes in Mopar engines work on the heads. Radar, the shop owner has built and repaired heads for John Force and helped design the B1 head. He has done experimental work for Chrysler Corp so why not have them do a little touch up. Radar and Woody needed a couple new electric die grinders and I was a tool dealer at that time so we swapped labor for tools. I think I got the better end of the deal. We never flowed the heads but I know they would be happy with a larger cam nad some headers. The Egge pistons and combustion chamber size got me 9.68/1 static. The Isky E-4 cam is pretty mild and the fctory manifolds are pretty restrictive. But that's what I wanted to build and it runs pretty well.
 
jimmer said:
So for thoose who did simple home porting.
Did you notice a difference in performance ?
Click to expand...
Oh yes. My 273 was a 100,000 mile original. I freshened it up with basic stock spec parts and warmed over heads. It works well.
 
jimmer said:
So for thoose who did simple home porting.
Did you notice a difference in performance ?
Click to expand...
Always.
Likewise for the intake manifold. Once the heads are pulling big numbers all around... the smallest thing like a gasket match, even marginally close, will yield results you can feel. Now is joe blow gonna do a match on stock heads and notice...probably not.
 
I have 3 sets of ported heads that others did .
They were well known guys on here.
I just wanted to try to make a little more power and learn in the process.
 
jimmer said:
I have 3 sets of ported heads that others did .
They were well known guys on here.
I just wanted to try to make a little more power and learn in the process.
Click to expand...
If they were done properly you may not see a improvement or even a decrease in performance depending on the rest of your combination.
 
Just to clarify.
Im not porting already ported heads.
This is another set for a truck.
 
brian6pac said:
My rule is never go down, always take it out of the roof never grind the floor , you can knock the bunps off but that is it. Spend your time on the roof and walls.
My 2 cents
Click to expand...


It's a good rule of thumb, but not always correct. Two examples off the top of my head are the SBC Pontiac head and the Mopar Stage VI heads. Dropping the floor on those is mandatory.

Counterintuitive, but true.

Of course, those are oddballs and it's almost always better to raise the roof and raise the floor as high as you can.
 
There is a great sticky by 1wild&crazyguy at the front door of this forum. I did my 273 heads after reading his thread. My 340 x heads are up on deck. If the hp gain is not noticeable, if done properly it's gotta help with efficiency. I didn' notice anything in my 273. But it changed the tone of the exhaust. Lori even noticed it.
 
Plenty of input from the more knowledgeable here on what to focus on. I've done enough work with grinders to know "control" of the tool is critical. Practice on scrap iron, junk heads, etc, tubes, ports and get a feel for how various cutters " cut", and learn to prevent chatter and the the tool getting away from you, too easy to go too far, and possibly ruin something
 
Go easy. You can't put back what you grind off. Port match and smooth out the lumps and bumps. Don't get too aggressive. Not likely to feel anything. It takes the total combination to make big differences. Carb, intake, heads, cam, headers. must match up and compliment each other.
 
yellow rose said:
It's a good rule of thumb, but not always correct. Two examples off the top of my head are the SBC Pontiac head and the Mopar Stage VI heads. Dropping the floor on those is mandatory.

Counterintuitive, but true.

Of course, those are oddballs and it's almost always better to raise the roof and raise the floor as high as you can.
Click to expand...
Though out of the spectrum, you can include the slant 6 heads in the "work the floor for more" approach.
 
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