Air Brush Touch Up
Polish the ports of my heads?
I’ve got cast iron vortec heads on my small block with 1.94 intake and 1.5 exhaust valves. what i was thinking, is if i were to dissassmbled the heads and clean up the ports to a smooth finish i should pick up some air flow. I’m not talking about porting the heads just smoothing the cast ports to a fine finish.
I was thinking if i were to use my dremel with steel brush wheel,i could smooth the ports out tremendously. As long as i don’t touch the valve seats i shouldn’t do any damage. I was also thinking of touching up the valves a little, just not touching where the valve makes contact.
This is on my extremely tight budget 357 motor. I’ve yet to spend $1000 on the motor (including the motor itself 350 bored .040 over) using junkyards, ebay, craigslist, and other classifieds my motor makes 372hp and 377ft-tq.
So should this help my cause at all?
surprisingly enough it will help. If you’ve got the time and patience it’s not bad at all. Although like another answer said. a wire brush isn’t going to cut it. A plug in dremel will do a fine job with the right wheel. Heres a tip: use a little bit of primer on the inside of the ports so you know how far you’ve grinded. Once the primer in the divots are gone you’ve erased the divots and shouldn’t continue much further. Blend the valve seats into the port a little, and trim the valve shrouds down. Don’t touch the actual valves themselves.
First and formost clean the head completely. If you’ve got the time and already have the appropriate heads for your dremel this horsepower that only cost your time. However it should be noted most machine shops will only charge about $100 for a set of heads to have the valve seats blended and the valve shrouds tapered down
http://www.popularhotrodding.com/enginemasters/articles/hardcore/0412em_porting_cylinder_heads/index.html
this is a good tech article for doing your own port/polish job