I am looking to do my first home port job on a set of Lt-1 casting heads. I was wondering if anyone had a step-by-step guide that i could follow to aid me in this process. If anyone does please feel free to share with me . Accepting any free guides

Brandon

 

IMO, head porting, like general surgery is best left to the experts. Many engine designers/builders subcontract their head porting to those guys who do it well.

That being said, an LT1 is basically just a SBC, and David Vizard describes much of what you need to do in his book on Chevrolet Cylinder heads:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...55262?v=glance

However, if you don't have a flowbench, you are just guessing. Can you hurt anything? Sure, but if you don't hog out a lot of material, you probably won't do much damage. There's even a chance you might help them.

My $.02

 

i think i might go buy that book too. going to the beach next week and that will give me something to read while im there...maybe my second set of heads will turn out good!

 

Bawh you wuss, I do all my own surgery. You've never had a fun Saturday evening until your hopped up on pain killer and start yelling "SCALPEL!".

http://www.sa-motorsports.com/diyport.shtm

 

Ken, your first surgery on yourself was a frontal lobotomy, wasn' it?
My guess is that Rich not only farms out his head porting but also any surgery he needs on himself. Well, except for perhaps the occasional stitch or staple if he cuts himself. How about it, Doc?

That's a good reference for porting.

IMO, a good porter is a scluptor, an artist. Some of the work I've seen is art.

 

Thanks guys for all the info and mook for the great article. If it makes you feel any better, i consider myself an artist

Brandon

 

i'd first find a pair of old..any kind of heads either cast-iron or aluminum

just scribe out basic stuff like intake gasket layout entry and chamber headgasket scribe lines...then just try to port and follow these lines as close as possible...keep porting on those pair of junk heads till get some experience handling and moving the die-grinder

even if you had very detailed articles. templates, pictures in front of you to copy from..you still need eye/grinder coordination and experience

so i'd tackle a "junk" pair 1st..get some of the porting basics down

then port your real heads with large smooth radius on short turn & bowl-areas
making gentle turns and approach and exit angles

check your progress on someone's FlowBench
don't hog everything out at 1st, go slow & cautious , Flow Checking as you go

 

Well, I once tried a DIY frontal lobotomy but then realized I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy!

Seriously, I really like Vizards book. But I agree that it would be hard to learn head porting from a book without a flow bench and/or a dyno and a lot of heads to experiment with. Most engine builders send theirs out to a specialist, as OldSStroker suggested.

Rich

 

Here is a decent step-by-step guide with some useful pictures. This, combined with other sources might help you.

http://members.***.net/gmarengo/

Click the Head Porting link on the left side.

 

LMAO here!

 

I was looking at some heads and the exhuast ports had kind of a "double bubble" thing going- like the C4 hood. Like mini 2 humps in the side of the runner where the valve guide is. Anyone explain that.


Air does tricky things, things you wouldn't intuitively guess. A fluid dynamics class is your friend... or just hog them out, hope for the best, know they wont be as good as they could be