X-Head Porting....

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DentalDart

DentalDart

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Been reading the threads on porting.. watching videos... also got some heads to practice on before destroying my xheads on my car... Thanks aarcuda.

Has anyone watched the uncle Tony videos on YouTube? I like his basic talk to me I can understand what he is saying. He does have a valve seat video which I'll link, is this ok to do or a big no no? I can't do a machine shop run and Tony (asrcuda) said my valves looked fine, but should I do a day valve seat job like in the video as well?

I just got my burrs from Mcfaddendales (dang they were more than the grinder from Harbor Freight). So ill start messing around when I have time, school just started back up so most of my practice will get done on the weekend... hopefully I can get some good practicing in and get a little faster before taking my dart apart to port the x heads.



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You will soon find out why it's so expensive to port heads. Can we say "LABOR INTENSIVE & PATIENCE REQUIRED" LMAO
 
If the X heads are unmolested now...... the value generally goes down after a diy-er has whittled on them.

Unless you find you have a “gift” for head porting....... it’ll take more practice that just futzing around with some old cores for a few hours before you’d really be ready to properly go after the X heads.
 
PRH said:
If the X heads are unmolested now...... the value generally goes down after a diy-er has whittled on them.

Unless you find you have a “gift” for head porting....... it’ll take more practice that just futzing around with some old cores for a few hours before you’d really be ready to properly go after the X heads.
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X heads are unmolested... besides painted... I wasn't planning on selling the heads, so wasn't to worried about the value ... just looking to pick up some extra air flow from them, nothing crazy. I have pictures of them somewhere..

I mean I work with a drill daily... but usually work on much smaller surfaces eith a much smaller drill...

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Coffee&Cars said:
IMO. If i was looking for the best out of those heads. I'd find someone with a CNC program for them. Practice on something else first... It's not as easy as you think.
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Not the best, just a little more flow from the xheads. I'm not allowed to spend money for a while, so can't buy aluminum heads right now...

Yea im practicing on the heads above that I posted. 2 different sets of 1.88/1.60 heads.
 
PRH said:
How will you determine if the porting you’re doing is helping or not?
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This is a really good question... I dont really know the answer, I guess I could have them flowed by a shop...

I just see people on here do some DIY porting on their heads and in the past people have gotten some good results doing it themselves...
 
You could always post progress pictures as you go on your "practice heads" here and get feedback from the experts - good or bad.
 
RammerJammer75 said:
Sell the X heads and buy a set of Speedmasters. You could probably get the money to buy them by selling the X heads, unless you're just wanting to use them.
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I was going to get speedmaster heads for black Friday, but my 4k national licensing exam had to be paid last semester. This semester I have 2k for my state license...

Speedmaster heads are about 1800 assembled right now... so more than the 11-1200 than they are on black friday.
 
DentalDart said:
I was going to get speedmaster heads for black Friday, but my 4k national licensing exam had to be paid last semester. This semester I have 2k for my state license...

Speedmaster heads are about 1800 assembled right now... so more than the 11-1200 than they are on black friday.
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Unless you hate yourself with a death passion...I’d skip porting on iron heads. Go to a wrecking yard and get whatever cheap aluminum heads they had and practice on those.

Then find some cheap used Eddies or get yourself some SM casting and port those.

Grinding iron sucks giant elephant ***. It’s not even remotely enjoyable.
 
yellow rose said:
Unless you hate yourself with a death passion...I’d skip porting on iron heads. Go to a wrecking yard and get whatever cheap aluminum heads they had and practice on those.

Then find some cheap used Eddies or get yourself some SM casting and port those.

Grinding iron sucks giant elephant ***. It’s not even remotely enjoyable.
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Used Eddie's and SM's are still expensive lol. And if I f'd up a set of those then I'd be in trouble lol.

I agree, grinding for hours sucks ***... I just did a little grinding on these old heads for like 20 minutes while the wife was in the shower.

There is a big hump here, I took it out. Then this big hump, I assume has to come down too. Ill try and get my die grinder tomorrow on the way home from school.

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I always take that bolt boss for the valve cover bolt out. I hate that thing, but I’m weird. If you don’t care about the castings and you don’t have a sonic tester, don’t be afraid to drill holes in places to see how think the casting is. And don’t be afraid to grind through in places to see what it feels and looks like when you do it.
 
Go to Sams or Costco, and buy 5 or 6 gallons of white vinegar to soak those rusty things in. It's cheap, and it works well. A 5 gallon bucket will be fine to use and let them sit in the vinegar. Some cheapo wire or plastic brushes from Harbor Freight to scrub them after you pull them out of the stinky vinegar. Hose them off with water, and then spray them with WD40 to keep them from rusting back so quickly. Doing all that will let you be able to see more of what you're doing. Tell your wife you are practicing root canals! :D
 
You have the best factory castings. If you don't have a flow bench, I would not do much. Untouched they can make serious power, look at old Stock and Super Stock Class times. I would only clean up under the bowls, get a first class valve job, maybe gasket match the intake and exhaust ports on the top and sides, and be done.
 
DD, for the time & effort you are going to end up with from the porting experience, you are not going to gain much on your street car. I have run ported heads on street cars, just because I already had them & not seen much if any difference. Porting heads for a race car is a different ball game entirely, it is to gain the last little bit of HP & to help the engine breath more efficiently. If it were my street car, I'd run the X heads unmolested & save your nickles & dimes to acquire aluminum heads as being suggested to you. No one is going to see or know that the heads are ported. The only person who will know for sure is you, I'd put my time & energy into other areas of the car. Most people who have never done any porting end up with one head partially done & the other head untouched, sitting in a dark area of their garage. I've ported one set of heads & will never try it again, I ponyed up the money & let the experts handle all of the grinding dust. I now have a set of Edelbock & Speed Master aluminum heads to run on my race engines. JMHO
 
I agree with demonracer whole heartedly. I had already most of the tooling and ready to give it a try. Took off most of the casting imperfections first and then started to work on the bowel areas under the valves. Using machinist dye painted the entire port area and “stoned” the painted areas clean, I did this procedure twice, intake and exhaust ports. Next I did intake gasket port matching, and then again for the intake manifold. The ports on the head and intake were way off in size and alignment, I would take care of this area first and then work back towards the valve areas.

What I learned, not worth the effort, for a street car, what do you think I made… maybe one or two horse power if that? BUT, I would at least gasket match the heads and manifold. .02 lol

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JDMopar said:
Go to Sams or Costco, and buy 5 or 6 gallons of white vinegar to soak those rusty things in. It's cheap, and it works well. A 5 gallon bucket will be fine to use and let them sit in the vinegar. Some cheapo wire or plastic brushes from Harbor Freight to scrub them after you pull them out of the stinky vinegar. Hose them off with water, and then spray them with WD40 to keep them from rusting back so quickly. Doing all that will let you be able to see more of what you're doing. Tell your wife you are practicing root canals! :D
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I hate doing root canals :rofl:

I have a big storage bucket from sams club full of vinegar already. It works great for getting rust off parts, but it also takes about a week of soaking to get them all cleaned up. Its just surface rust on the ports and once its hit with the burr it is much easier to see.
 
66fs said:
You have the best factory castings. If you don't have a flow bench, I would not do much. Untouched they can make serious power, look at old Stock and Super Stock Class times. I would only clean up under the bowls, get a first class valve job, maybe gasket match the intake and exhaust ports on the top and sides, and be done.
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Yea I was just hoping to mainly clean them up.

I talked to a machine shop yesterday, he said that a valve job would be the best thing for the heads. Also said that the cost of porting iron heads to flow what aluminum heads flow is pricey.
 
DentalDart said:
Yea I was just hoping to mainly clean them up.

I talked to a machine shop yesterday, he said that a valve job would be the best thing for the heads. Also said that the cost of porting iron heads to flow what aluminum heads flow is pricey.
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Doc just curious, why did you take heads the off?
 
Demonracer said:
^^^ DD, that's what we have been trying to explain. LOL
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I know what everyone is trying to explain lol. I also think everyone thinks I'm going to go all crazy trying to be a professional porter... which I'm not. All the videos I've watched and threads I've read mainly say to clean up the imperfections in casting and help air flow more efficiently. I know I'm not going to get 300 flow #'s, but this gives me something to do on my car that doesn't cost anything really but time.
 
512Stroker said:
Doc just curious, why did you take heads the off?
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What heads? My xheads are still on my running car... right under that box... the heads I'm practicing on were one man's trash and my treasure. Lol. They are all old 70s 360 heads with 1.88/1.60 valves.

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