Head Porting

[HOTSIX]

To any of you out there who have done your heads.....

I have mine off and will be porting them. Question is...how much can be removed in the area of the valve guide ?

I would like to smooth out this area....but I read in a post somewhere that the water jackets are real close to this spot.

It makes me nervous.....anyone got pics of their finished heads or how much I can trim down here in this area ?

Everywhere else just needs polishing / smoothing to get rid of the casting marks etc. The valve guide is the only spot that needs a 'lil grinding down in my opinion.

 

[Brent]

I think there were specs for this in the buck powerscorce book.

 

[KendallF]

Originally posted by HOTSIX
To any of you out there who have done your heads.....

I have mine off and will be porting them. Question is...how much can be removed in the area of the valve guide ?

I would like to smooth out this area....but I read in a post somewhere that the water jackets are real close to this spot.

It makes me nervous.....anyone got pics of their finished heads or how much I can trim down here in this area ?

Everywhere else just needs polishing / smoothing to get rid of the casting marks etc. The valve guide is the only spot that needs a 'lil grinding down in my opinion.

There are pictures on www.gnttype.org of the first set that I did.

http://www.gnttype.org/techarea/pictureguides/heads/porting/porting.html

I put bronze guides in those heads but if you'll look at the pictures, you'll see I pretty much took the entire stock guide out. In the exhaust port, you can remove them basically flush with the roof of the port if you wish. In the intake port, you can profile them pretty heavily.

Here's a picture of another set I did that still has the stock guides: sorry, I should've taken better pictures.

http://home.attbi.com/~frederik/images/gnmtr002.jpg

 

[HOTSIX]

Kendall - Those heads look pretty good...both the ones on gnttype and the link u sent.

Did you notice a seat of the pants gain after bolting them on ? I have a TA-33 with a ported intake (much the same as i win engineering's intake) so I am hoping to see a noticable gain when I get the car together again.

 

[BLACK Ttype]

Valve guides

I seen a guy once, he cut all of the valve guides completely down to the roof of the bowl and the car went tens.

 

[HOTCRAB]

Hey I know that guy too Kinda looks like mine now

 

[HOTSIX]

I have bronze guides pressed into my stock valve guide locations. I have the motor rebuilt and heads too. I guess the shop put them in there right ? I mean there aren't stock or anything...are they ?

I can't see any bronze in the pics on gnttype (link above) showing stock heads.


I've got 8445 heads - is that what came stock on my car ?

I don't know much about porting heads here so excuse the question....do I remove this bronze guide before I shave the guides down close to the roof of the intake bowl ??

I get nervous doing that in case I damage the guide too much to make it useable or I punch through to a water jacket !!!!!!

HOTCRAB - did you really go to the roof of the bowl ? Got any pics to guide me ??

 

[Lee Thompson]

guides

This would be a good time to cut the exhaust guides down (the side of head where the valve spring sits) Buick made these somewhat longer than the intake and did not put a seal on them. If you should ever go to a .500 lift cam, this will have to be done.

 

[REDS HOT AIR]

them egg heads are talking about my exaust ports

yeap cut the guides off flush with the roof of the port

but if your guides are not in real good shape you valve will be looser since the end of the valve would be farther from the guide

no pictures of mine but there are some on gn/ttype that show a head cut into sections and in them pictures the guide is cut flat.

 

[forcefed3.8's]

What about intake ports?

 

[BLACK Ttype]

Today

I just cut my exhaust valve guides all of the way down today, so I can personally say that I'm sure there are no water jackets in the way of those.

Yes the 8445's are stock heads.

Time for my question.
How far down will the back side of the exhaust valve guides need to be cut down for a .500 lift cam. Even with the intake side?

I got your eggheads Red!

 

[crazygn]

Ive seen the 1 and only CRAB

 

[HOTSIX]

Hey thats great thanks guys.

Do I cut the guides with my grinding stone or won't that ruin the guides ?

I was thinking maybe just trim off all the meat around them guides then cut the guide somehow with a cutoff wheel...right ??

 

[BLACK Ttype]

Grind it down

Your gonna have to grind it down or you will never get it flush with the roof of the bowl. I tried the cut off wheel, it wasn't pretty , I was lucky it still ground down flush .

 

[HOTSIX]

RED - thanks man I checked out the pics on gnttype of the dissection of the heads.

They are perfect for a project like this.

LONG LIVE GNTTYPE.ORG !!!
BLACKTtype - I'm nervous about ruining the bronze guides. They are new - only 200 miles on 'um maybe. If I take the grinding stone to them I think they will get all messed up so my valves won't slide like they should in them.

Thats all I need. I might take them to the machine shop that did my engine rebuild just for the porting of the valve guide area of the heads (both intake + exhaust). That way they will either replace the bronze guides or do whatever they do not to ruin them during porting....