i have a guy here in memphis who has built many sprint car motors and a few motors for myself. i talked to him about the lt1 that i have and he said that he had heard there were certain tricks to making these heads flow well but he wasnt sure. what does it take to make a set of lt1 heads flow well enough to handle maybe about 500hp at the crank? i may be better off sending them to a reputable head porter but right now he works for me cheap and i am on a budget so any tips would be great. thanks, dustin

 

Probably one of the best things to due withouth killing the flow numbers is
to get a valve job.

Lighten up the valve and improve flow into the chamber.

I did it with my heads and it's a HUGE noticeable improvement.

Another trick that I read about (but haven't applied) is "unshrouding the valves".
I believe this involves some chamber work to open up the area around the
valve which partially impedes air flow and the swirl effect.

 

yeah that is pretty standard but he said something about radiusing the ports a certain way and taking meat away from certain areas of the port. anyone know what he was talking about???????

 

if your a first time porter, leave the short side radius alone till you get alittle better knowledge.

 

i am not going to attempt anything i am just looking for tips to tell my builder. he is kinda old school but builds a lot of dirt track racers and drag car engines. the last motor he built for me was a lil 383 that went 11.13 in a full bodied 69 camaro. he just doesnt want to do the work and not make a big improvement so i am doing some checking before we get started. thanks, dustin

 

well dustin(great name bye the way) here are some tips dont go over board with the valve size, lt1 have small combustion chambers and you will get a shrouding effect. lt1 heads arent dogs so they really dont have tricks his basic knowledge of sbc1 heads should give a good idea when he ports your lt1heads.

 

The trick to to send them to a reputable shop BTW I think even Lloyd only charges like 500$ or less for porting no valve job,etc... though, so why kill yourself & still not get near close to the results just to save 450-500$? If you F*ck up there will be welding involved, chances are you'll never meat the quality, the materials will cost you, & if all is said & done & you put the heads on & they make no power, taking them off is a waste of head gaskets. No point in my books, if you want to learn, practice on some junk heads but you have to understand that this stuff don't come over night although I have seen some great results.

Matt.

 

thanks dnz for the info. bunker, i am not going ot do anything to these heads personally. i have a guy who has built many engines for me and friends and has been building engines around here for over 25 years. i was just checking to see if there were any tricks to making these heads flow well. he only charges me 700 to fully prep the heads but i cant be in a hurry for them, which i'm not. thanks for the input guys.