Porting cylinder heads to optimize engine performance | Hagerty DIY

- Alright. Hi, I'm Davin Reckow from Hagerty and in today's DIY we'll look at how to port a set of

cylinder

heads

. (burr noise) A couple of fairly simple tools are fine for carrying this stock, but they may not be in everyone's toolbox. So I have a set of double cut carbide end mills. I have a good one, it happens to be an Ingersoll Rand, but I have a good dye crusher, a long extended cutter, a flashlight, a tool for the dye crusher, the intake valve and the exhaust valve. And then I also have a dye cam, valve lapping compound, and a lapping tool.

An alternative tool to a dye grinder and compressor etc would be a simple dremel tool, which would also use a burr. The unfortunate thing about those dremel tools is that the burrs won't be as big. So it will take you more time, but you can still do the function, it's not a problem. So when im

porting

cylinder

heads

, there are two ways to look at things. From a DIY standpoint, I'll gain 30-40% flow on these heads over the stock versions, compared to the 100% I can get by taking them to a store and spending $2500+ or ​​a little less .

So the idea is that with a little time, with some fairly common tools, you can get good

performance

in a matter of a few hours in your own workshop and be better than the guy with a stock setup. Well, it's pretty simple: an

engine

is an air pump. So air in and out to generate power. To do that, you need to smooth the flow from the intake valve into the combustion chamber and then, of course, into the exhaust. The simple areas to make improvements are what they call the rear port or the back of the valve.

So that would be down here. So from the camera's point of view, you should be able to see that there's a little ridge here. These Pontiac heads aren't too bad, but on some heads this is very pronounced. Regardless of what we do, we will take a burr. It turns out that this is a dual carbide cutting end mill that comes here with a tint grinder and we're just going to take that edge out and smooth things out. Now the other side is the port that matches what I would do on the inlet channels, I would take the gasket that is here, lift the dye and trace it.

And then your joint will typically be a little bit larger than the cast iron runner. And you basically open it up but bring it back here so it's nice and smooth. Now, on this Pontiac, I'm not going to do that because, as you can see here, it's very tight. As for the pushrod area, the pushrod boss, I don't want to cut that pushrod boss and cause a vacuum leak inside the

engine

. So I'll stay away from that side of things. Now keep in mind that you don't want to be extremely aggressive with the amount of material you remove, because if you cut into the water jackets, that's a problem.

If you cut off the entrance, the flow from the other side is also a problem. So be conservative in what you're cutting, unless you really know the heads you're working with, but you can get great

performance

by just massaging them a little with the milling cutter. Alright, my first step is to grab some dye chamber machinist dye. And I'm going to daylight cover this entire chamber and the main reason is so I can take the valve, put it inside with a little bit of polishing compound, and then I can clearly see where the sealing surfaces of my valves are.

And then when I use the grinder and that blue wears off or gets cut, I can easily see where I am because I don't want my bur to hit this sealing surface. So a small dye chamber. And if you've never used this before, it has a nice smell and dries to the touch quickly. And if you need to clean it, wipe it with some brake cleaner or you can just leave it. Alright, I'm going to take my intake valve, I'm going to put some abrasive compound on it and I wouldn't need to cover it completely, but we'll make sure we cover it.

And all this will do is remove some of that blue so we can clearly see where the sealing surface is. (valve lapping) and I wonder if you are doing this often, this is what they would call lapping on a valve if you do it for much longer. Okay, now with the valve out, you can see the silver band here, this is where the valve seals the seat. That's right, I came in here with this cutter. I have quite a bit of wiggle room even on this bottom edge, to clean this edge of the cast up to the seat, I'm just going to smooth it out.

I'm probably going to leave a little hole right there. Because I don't want to get too far here and I don't need to get so excited about it. So, for example, as we cut this lip right here, I'm going to take it out and come back. And on the exhaust side, you can see there's a huge ridge right here, which will negatively affect the flow as the combustion chamber empties. So I'm going to start by using this Christmas tree cutter. And I find that I can do most of the work I'm looking for with that, but I like to regulate my speed.

You can also regulate the air pressure directly on the wall. (burr noise) So you can see it's already starting to take shape pretty quickly. This damages very quickly, so you have to be careful. You'll notice that I'm moving it around nice and easy. I'm not putting much pressure on it, I'm letting the tool do the work and I'm still floating over that surface. And all I'm trying to do is smooth this out so it has a nice, smooth shape, think about the airflow coming from this side, flowing through, removing all the ridges. (burr noise) So I think with that camera angle you can see now that it's a straight shot up to the cylinder.

It has no hump to move. It's pretty smooth just with the carbide. You can go in and polish it up a little bit. However, I wouldn't use more than 36 grains on the intake side and I'll basically have to go all the way around and do a little bit on the short side as well. And this port will clean up pretty well. (burr noise) Now, this port is definitely much smoother. There is a better transition from the intake side to the port chamber. It could use a little more sanding. I'll need to grab some sander and get in there, but even with the cutting burr it's very smooth compared to the original model, of course, now I need to go through and do the other seven.

Alright, now the only difference between the intake and the exhaust is purely the intake versus the exhaust. So instead of flowing out of the carburetors and flowing out the back of the valve into the chamber, it now flows out of the chamber to the outside. So keep this in mind when you look at the port and clean it to remove the ridges in this direction. So, for example, looking at this port, at the top of the guide there is a ridge there. I'm going to go in gently, take that off and smooth it out. And then when you look at it, there's a big ridge right here.

Let's work backwards and try to match it. Because air will flow over a rounded or slightly rounded surface much better than over a sharp edge. It's just more consistent. (burr rubbing). Well, from this side I have things pretty rough. I'm going to have to change my bur to get it really good. I probably need something a little more secure. I would probably use this and just varnish that edge to blend it in. And then to get to the top of this back spoke, I can get a little bit of, a little bit of the bottom or the back, but I think I can take this here considering it's going to be sealed here.

So I don't want to even go over the flat edge of the bur with the axis of the bur up, but I need to come in here and tilt it up and do it like this. And just break that edge up there. Now, something to keep in mind as you increase the length of the shaft in the burr, you need to slow down because the faster this weight is thrown, it will start to act like a piece of spaghetti, which is uncontrollable. So you want to run this a lot slower, so you don't have that bounce and chatter and you just can't control it. (burr rubbing) Something else to keep in mind with carbide burrs: you will quickly separate the good dye grinders from the bad because I have found that some of the dye grinders, the less expensive ones, are not balanced.

And they're actually not very soft either. So when you start hearing a lot of chatter in a short moment, it's probably because your grinder isn't balanced well or isn't very well made. This is where it pays to spend a few extra dollars on the grinder. So the difference between a $10 one and this one that's only around 60 or $70 is huge. Both in how you can control the speed and the fact that it doesn't do it all the time, your work will be much better. (burr noise) Patience will certainly be a virtue here. At the end of the day, you'll probably have about an hour at a minimum alone on a camera.

So yes, it's about eight hours, but it's also your time, rather than paying someone else's time, and you can get a good performance, not everything, but a good performance. (burr rub) And obviously I'm checking, just reaching out and feeling with my finger, feeling that transition, you know, right now with the sanding roller, I've got this nice and smooth, but there's still like a little ridge back here . , which I will have to get with a slightly deeper burr. And this is still pretty difficult, but I'll have to switch to a smaller sanding roller to achieve this little plate here, I'm working on a Pontiac head.

There are multiple Pontiac heads, all with different cam styles and different intake runners. And then you get into a Chevy, a Ford, and a Chrysler, and so on. They will all be slightly different. So I can't sit down and tell you that this is going to be exactly how you do it in all the other heads. You're going to have to use your own common sense and look at things and feel how it flows, know what that camera looks like, know what you're getting into, you know like a bolt hole and make sure you don't do it.

You don't go in, you know, you cut too much material. But again, if you stay conservative, simply removing the cast edges will still be an improvement over what you had. Well, in addition to cleaning out the back of the ports, like I mentioned before, you can go through and open up a matching port, the exhaust that you can plug in matches the intake side. One of the other two areas I also like to work on is aesthetic performance. So from an aesthetic standpoint, if I go in and shave the cast lines, I get a better surface for the paint to adhere to because the paint doesn't want to sit on the razor's edge.

Therefore, from an aesthetic point of view, the painting will remain here. You'll look better, you'll look better longer. Secondly, on these Pontiacs, specifically in the intake, in the rocker valley, this had a lot of cast flare. So I took the opportunity with the grinder since I had removed them and went through them completely bare and shaved off all the casting debris. Now, does that improve power? No, but what it will do is prevent any loose parts from falling into the motor and going through the bearings and pump and causing all kinds of problems. Second, it will help depending on where it is, it will help the oil drain back and it is best to have oil off the top of the head and into the oil pan where the oil pump can pick it up and place it. back, but it drains faster and overall your engine will be much happier.

Thanks for watching. Hopefully you gained some information from carrying some butts. By the way, this particular head will be on our Pontiac engine rebuild redline. You might want to subscribe and if my editor is doing well here then there should be something here to click on, subscribe, leave your comments and until then have fun. (laugh). - Seriously, we have to have fun (mumbles) - Yes.