Need Help- Porting Heads for beginners

I started off with this one from harbor freight with a variable speed control dial. Its cheap, its available and it does the job. The downside is you need both tools because the one speed die grinder is far to high in speed to port heads and it will bend long carbide burrs at that speed.
https://www.harborfreight.com/14-in-43-amp-heavy-duty-long-shaft-die-grinder-60656.html
https://www.harborfreight.com/router-speed-control-43060.html

Now I have an assortment of Milwaukee tools and this is the one I use now. I love that this one is variable speed and the wireless function.
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Milwaukee-M18-FUEL-18-Volt-Lithium-Ion-Brushless-Cordless-1-4-in-Die-Grinder-Tool-Only-2784-20/301050238?cm_mmc=Shopping|G|Base|D25T|25-9_PORTABLE+POWER|NA|LIA|71700000044155732|58700004615424082|92700040564149235&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIvKDcraOR4QIVlFuGCh3vGQrmEAQYAiABEgKPdvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

 

Any news?

 

I started to port the runners and bowls but I came into big port 430 heads that were turned into stage 1 heads ready to go with a clean up at the machine shop.

I intend to finish those heads and turn them into stage 1 heads in the future

 

I know the OP has probably finished his head porting project but thought I would share this article. It's from the Granddaddy of porting professionals, Joe Mondello.

https://mondelloperformance.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/HeadPortingAtHome.pdf

 

Over the years I have seen ton's of Joe's work and he always go over board with the either the size of the port at the Intake flange, or the Exh port flange in relation to how much the head flowed!
I first came you know his work when a Olds guy in a local car club came to me with his heads that Joe had just ported for him.
Joe made the gasket match at the Exh port so big that this poor guy had to go out and buy a bigger set of Header to run, which in the long run be sides draining his wallet cost the motor a good chunk of low speed throttle responce below 3000 rpm.
A big factor when the car owner does not want to go above the 3.23 gearing that his car had!

 

So I thought I would update this thread I started.

so I’m doing my first porting job, I’m doing it on break every day at work which I find is good, it’s not enough time to get frustrated or tired and eat away a bunch of metal and it leaves me excited to come back to the head.

So it’s only been a week of doing this head and these were converted to stage 1 head and in the earlier post I said these heads were ready to go but they are not! These needed to be opened up on the ports 1. Because the casting was so rough, especially on the roof on my intake ports 2. The port opening was not symmetrical at all.

So my exhaust ports and intake ports are opened to the gasket and I started to blend the edge above the guide boss down into the boss itself. I’m waiting for dykem to come in so I can dye and lap the valves and see a good visible line where the valve seat is and then start taking off metal right under the valve seat go from there with shaping the bowl.

 

You go young Johnson!!! Best of luck to you Christopher!

 

Thanks John!!

 

Good thread,and I'm interested in opinions on some work I recently did.

455 Big valve heads - I port matched the intake to an intake I already had which had B4B/Performer sized ports, which amounted to raising the port roof at the gasket and minimal blending back the sides and floor to match . I didnt do anythng but rough out the radius turns, floor and roof, basically removing casting flash. In the bowls, I blended the throat below the seats, keeping I think an 85-88% ratio, and took material out of the back of bowl to smooth the guide into the high side of the bowl. I blended the guide not so much into a teardrop, but more to get it out of the way of the cyl wall side flow, I smoothed the inner side but did not remove a ton of material in an effort to retain some kind of shear there. I shaped the port roof into the bowl with a bias toward the outer outer wall of the cyl, thinking it would promote swirl as it entered the bowl and subsequent chamber. I removed as little as possible material from anywhere in an effort to keep port velocity as high as possible, and I didnt spend much time at all with a sanding disc, just enough to avoid flaws you could catch with a fingernail. As I looked at it from the perspective of how would water wants to flow, it seemed right but I have no idea if I've helped or hurt flow in the end..What say the experts?

 

Yeah maybe Steve can chime in and talk about your work.

 

Don’t get too carried away gasket matching if it bottlenecks into the head.

 

Yeah I agree with you Brian, I personally went in about 2 inches from the opening and made it uniform.

 

yeah, I thought about that but I was already screwed with the manifold port sizes.> I think it was modified to work with 430 heads. I blended it in as best I could but I didnt want to lose velocity by hoggining it out all the way through (or do worse )

 

Yea,many times I see people get real focused on gasket-matching,thinking they are making gains,only to make it worse.
What intake are you using?

 

Stock 70 cast iron that someone did a lot of work too and raised the ports. I needed a set of heads that would match it, I couldnt let that air hit the stock port edges...

 

Did they raise or enlarge the port height all the way up the intake runner,or just at the opening?

 

they opened up the manifold all the way up to the plenum, cut windows in and everything. Have no idea if it works, but had to try it anyway..Looks like the work Gessler used to do, and it weighs maybe half of what a normal manifold weighs, lotsa material removed. They port matched it to a TA gasket, so I had to do the same on the head. it really was mostly raising the port roof, the bottom and sides didnt need much work as I recall

 

Chris, I'm working on a set of 68 430 heads. I've opened the ports up to match the gasket but wasn't sure on how far back I should take material out to blend it and make it a smooth transition instead of quick widening at the end of the port. I was worried about taking too much out and hitting the coolant passages, are the walls fairly thick?

 

Sounds like it worth continuing on into the heads Bigpig455. For the sleepers or the FAST engines,we would cut the bottom of the intake off,do all the port work,then put it back together. Some people did the extrude honing. As long as you have a uniform size all the way through,you’re headed the right direction.

 

Yeah the heads were both working on have a good amount of material, just open it up the gasket and that it. I quickly did a couple of passes with the carbide burr to smooth out the port floor and shape bottom two corners. I enlarged the sides to the gasket which were maybe at most 1/16 of an inch material removed, and the port roof was were I removed the most material, if you’re intake port roof is not touched yet, feel the roof about a half inch from the opening and if you had what I had it’s a sharper edge of rough casting, I made sure that was nice and smooth to the rest of the port.

and I’m not done yet so I’ll keep updating my work and when it’s done I have a guy with a flow bench to see how I did.