A few weeks ago I found myself w/ a limited amount of free time available and a burning desire to finish the porting on my "Frankenstein" intake. At that point it had the runner exits rewelded due to some port matching issues w/ the new heads and had been milled by Dwayne Porter to fit properly. Anyway, I fired up the Makita w/ a "fast cut" carbide to open up all that new weld and it was a classic episode of "Man vs. Machine!" because of only having narrow window of opportunity.

Cut to the chase: the end results aren't pretty... and really aren't indicative of the type of work I try to do for myself. And last night as I was removing the intake from the heads mocked-up on the block while trying to check the port alignment, it really bothered me that I did such a freakin' hack job on the intake, simply because I got tired of it taking so long to get the MoPig back together (again).

Will it work? Yeah, but I'd be embarassed to show anybody the intake off the engine because of how crappy it turned out. And short of going through the major (and not inexpensive) hassle of duplicating this particular intake w/ all the welding & porting work, I can't even say if it would have been 2, 10 or 20 HP better had I taken my time. But it really pi$$es me off that this is how it turned out... and that it could (and should) have turned out better if I'd not been in such a rush.

"Learn by other's mistakes!"

pics or lie

could it look as bad as the outside of the intake?

Sometimes things take longer than normal/expected. And rushing, forcing, or "trying harder" can result in lesser results.

Today I was helping MJ freshen his 727, mostly to check the sprag when he broke the rear end last year. The car hasn't been driven since. Yes the sprag was rolled, so that got fixed. The rest was in great shape, but I think he only has less than 200 passes since 2004. During the last step of reassembly, I put the pump in without the o-ring to check the input shaft end play. It had none, and the input shaft wouldn't turn by hand either. After spending a hour checking things and putting the clutch packs in and out maybe 5 times it all went together correctly and had the same endplay as before disassembly. I wasn't getting the rear clutch discs to all go on the planetary all the way. We both kept our cools and just kept at it until it was right. But that was an hour longer than normally needed.

Brad I thought you had been taking your time hate to see slow motion

Seriously sorry to hear about the issues. It happens to all of us, especially when projects take so long and time is limited. Now you know why i quit this insanity when the kids were young.

If its any consolation, a 'rough' port surface on an intake may be faster than a 'smooth' surface port. And the roof matters more than the rest of the port. And then there's always epoxy or JD Weld.. I'd bolt that sucker on and give it a whirl, might surprise you...

You could get some green death from Goodson. It's pretty good epoxy and holds up to gasoline pretty well. Devcon makes better epoxies and they're steel or aluminum specific. That is if you want to build it up and are in a hurry.

The only epoxy I'd trust these days w/ the ethanol-blended pump gas would be Belzona. I already have first-hand experience that Moroso's goes soft and comes off when exposed to alcohol.

My plan at the moment is to try and do some "touch ups", then just run it in whatever form it turns out.

Hey we all goof up sometimes. Sh*t happens.
you could search out "splash zone" excelent epoxy that works under salt water and can also be applied under water.

pics

Everything takes longer than expected. Slow down. Sounds like good advice.