Something I read from a guy in the engine masters challenge. He says "You only have so much time to get the air to move, and you need air velocity to move it. If you don't have 400 feet per second minimum at 28 inches of water [ depression ], you are never going to get the air to move, especially at lower rpm." This was actually about a small block Ford. The intake ports flowed 410 cfm with a cross-sectional area of 2.3 square inches, and a air speed of 450 feet per second. Also note the chambers were 37.5 cc and motor was of course built per say of the rules. What would make a good discussion is why do you need a monster cross-sectional area for a given combination wether it's small inches or big inches to get heads to work? How about this what size fits all talk? High velocitys, small port shenanigans that was argued way back on here.

One important thing I read is that the change in direction from the port entry to the exit into the chamber at the valve dictates to a large degree how much CSA you need or can use. The tighter the turn, the smaller the port has to be because you have that choke point where the port turns. Think old small block or BB versus new gen 3 Hemi. If you turn the port 90 degrees, supposedly you choke the port by 50 percent. 45 degrees, you only choke it 25 percent. That lines up with the old statement that an inline valve engine is only as good as the length of the valves. Long valves allow much more room and less angle for the turn.

I've read some of those same exact things. As a matter of fact my W2 heads have longer valves then my 440 source heads. I know a big thing on here in the past was big ports rule that had 3+ csa and high velocity small ports were junk.

Wouldn't the port need to be bigger at a choke point (short turn) to keep velocity down? To keep it from "ski jumping" off the shirt turn?

You don't want to kill short turn. But some say fat and bias for short turn.

I've re-read the above section of your original post more than a couple times and still cannot understand what point you are trying to make, or the idea you want people to discuss...

The size of the port should be sized to the engine and its performance target goal. A port to large flows little air and a port to small can not flow enough air. So when the know perameters of the engine, all the specs and parts known (except the cylinder heads ports) then it can be decided what is needed for THAT build.

For maximum power, there is a formula to follow. Making the port smaller reduces power and rpm. Making the port to large doesn't allow for power to begin where you want it and the engine can run out of steam before the heads finish, or in a extreme case, even start.

Making a 1 size fits all is what the factory does to a large degree. While there are a verity of heads with different port sizes, there also compromised in future upgrades in performance or the reverse of towing.

The small blocks have basically 2 sets of heads. 273/318 - 340/360. The factory has a perameters set. So getting a factory head to work a 340 to 440 stroker, it turns the head from a performance parts to a torque maker with a short rpm ceiling.

If Ma-MoPar made a high performance 440 small block, they would not be using a standard 360 head! They would have to develop a new head for the extreme sized small block with larger ports. The cross section could not remain the same and let the engine perform like the smaller one would.