home ported heads

The "story" on the 308s is that the exhaust port is really good, the intake port is where you put the work. Use a single pattern camshaft when you're all done.
If you want to see a botched intake port look at chevy 350 heads casting 193, they have about half the intake bowl blocked off.
R.

yeah, dogdays..im grinning over the exhaust. really straight roof.

keep up the good work . like you said 20 dollar heads have some fun and see what you can get out of them some people like the Moroso A-B epoxy.

just press steel stock in the pushrod hole then re-drill to the w2 offset..then grind open the port shirt side square..
dont take anything off the floor unless you know what your doing at the short turn. you will kill more flow there than make if its wrong..
Ive always added material on the short turn..
the radius is key and its easy to kill it and make the same air as an almost unported head..
good luck..
another trick is put a vacuume in the intake port from the comb chamber it will suck out all the debris as you grind..
some doans back pills or ibuprofen and youll will be in order though..

I LOVE the taste of cast iron in the morning.

Even with a mask on and the shop vac sucking chips from the opposite port - I have black buggers for a week.

I would love to have one of these be I would have to start charging more. http://www.grizzly.com/products/28-x-39-Downdraft-Table/H2936

Years ago I spent ALOT of time on a pair of "J" heads........The single, most important thing I learned was; I should'a had them leak checked before I bolted them down.......it was a calculated risk I lost!

Hope your results are better than mine.......

Good luck!!

I could always tell when a set was done "at home" by first glance. The first hole is always the largest....most work done. As the job progressed you could tell guy was getting bored and just wanted to get them "done". Each port would become progressively less and less "worked" until the final hole looked like a quickie polish job...no need to even flow...even if the first hole WAS done properly.... which they never are as they ALWAYS only "open them up" at the accessible areas...

I learned years ago to pick one task/area to fix and do it for each port on both sets of heads before going to the next task. That helps keep us novices from becoming over-zealous on one port or cylinder before making all the same moves on the other ones.

I have no idea if it's good or bad - but after porting mine, I took them to a buddy with a flow bench to "check" them. I had a 3 cfm spread between best and worst ports. Like I said, I have no idea if that's fairly close or really messed up, but that's how they are.

I don't do an entire port all at one time. I will start with gasket matching all the ports, then work on the bowl of the ports, etc to keep them all about the same. I use dividers to check consistency. I will usually do just a part of the port then duplicate that on the other ports, then go back and do a bit more, and repeat.

I learned how to do valve jobs in my high school auto class but that was just basic valve jobs. Then I learned alot more of the porting and all on my own as my brother bought his own valve grinding tools when he had his own shop. I also found out you always spend way more time porting heads then you think you will spend. These 906 heads here I did my own porting on and I installed the 2.14 and 1.81 valves myself with my brothers machine shop valve grinding tools. We had the tools to cut the guides down for the smaller seals when going to dual springs and even had the tools to knurl valve guides. These are the 906's I used on the mild 440 I had in my 63 for a few years. I opened them up and put the 2.14 and 1.81 valves in them and then worked and blended the bowls along with the rest of the porting. I know I spent at least 40 hrs in the heads and I found out that after I had back surgery there was no way I could port heads any more. Just trying to bend over the heads for a few minutes was impossible with my back problems. This was the last set I ever ported as it was right before I fell and had back surgery. I never flowed them as we had no bench. I just did them as I had learned over the years but I was by no means a profesional head porter. I did many stock valve jobs over the years on friends and customers cars but most were just stock daily drivers. Just mine and my hot rod buddies were the ones I ported myself. I enjoyed doing it but never flowed any to know how good they were. I only knew what worked when I put the heads back on the cars and they went faster. So when I bought my EZ heads I had Dwayne Porter do some of his magic on them. He is a pro and there is no way I could be anywhere as good as him as he has done thousands more heads then me and flows them so he knows what works. I always enjoyed the pride of building my own engines and doing all the work myself but I was a profesioal auto repair tech for my living with my porting and hot rod skills as my hobby. I cant thank Dwayne porter enough for the great job he did on my EZ heads for me. He is a profesional head porter and knows just where to port and what works the best. Here is a pic of the 906's I put the 2.14 and 1.81 valves in and used on my mild 440. Ron

I hear you Ron! I have a flow bench and valve grinding equipment here at the house... I just send all my heads to Dwayne these days. He has done 6 to 10 sets of heads in the last 5 years and I have never had one issue with any of them.

To the OP, there is something to doing it yourself but tread lightly it is easy to waste your time and make junk. Less is more sometimes, hard to have positive results without a bench.

Good article on basic porting
http://www.1962to1965mopar.ornocar.org/ml-pitchercastingheadarticle.html
Mike

Talking about bending over a head, I find my best results are from sitting on a tall stool with the head on a bench even with the fattest part of my biceps. I don't like the control I get standing up, bending over the bench.

R.

ive had some conversations with john cadamore (thanks john!) and the subject of putting a 2.05 intake into the 308 heads came up. anyone done this? what were the results?