Boy, you go back as far as I do! About the only flowbench available in the early 60's when Beswick was running Pontiac SD's and Prudhomme had just moved up from helping out Tommy Ivo was maybe Smokey's home-brewed job.

IMO, if anyone had flowed Pontiac heads then, they might not have tried to race against BBC and Hemi engines.

Arnie did a lot of outrageous (for the time) things. He was a farmer, with all the mechanical savvy good farmers seem to have. The only time I met him, around '65, I think, he was one of the most unassuming people I had ever met. He was winning a lot, and could have copped the superstar attitude, but he did not. I am impressed that he's still putting on a good show at the track.

 

I must regret to say that Arnie had a terrible car fire on the return road weekend before last, He is fighting for his life now in a hospital. I have met him twice and unless you knew who he was you would have thought he was just a 70 year old guy on the pit crew of a nice 63 tempest pro mod car. I am right now in search of the address in St Louis (Hospital)he is at to send him a get well card.

 

Thanks for the heads-up.

http://www.arniebeswick.com/news.htm

 

Well.......... If you read my post I said that I did some research and then started porting after I got some background info. Also I took my time. But apparently by your opinion I should have gone out and bought a flow bench before I started, or just forked over my money to someone to port a set of heads for me I'm not running an all out drag car here, I set out to see what I could do with my own hands and a set of used LT1 heads. But I guess you're right, I have no idea what I'm doing, I just picked up .82 in the 1/8 via a mail order tune(which is still running way rich) a HOTcam, and MY homeported heads.

John

 

I wasnt trying to insult anyone just sharing the truth.

That would make your current 1/8 mile time.....?
And I am sure that you track tested each one of those mods before installing the next.
I would be interested to know what each one of the mods was worth and which one made the biggest difference.

 

Sorry, I've had a rough day, and took your words a little too harsh. Let me start over again-

I don't know what the individual mods were worth. Heads, cam and tune dropped my 1/8 from 9.0 @81.65 to 8.18 @86.65. I was at a slow track if you can tell

However I think the backyard mechanic, using some good judgement and having some solid background info can to a satisfactory job at porting. Sure if you want to constantly put your car in a competitive environment you are better off letting a professional do his work. I'm not going to claim that my heads will give a good pros job a run, because they won't, and they weren't meant to. They were meant for me to say that I did it myself. If the original poster is looking for a decent power gain that he can do himself I don't want to discourage him from trying to work a set of heads. However if he wants that edge then yes he should get a reputable guy to port the heads for him.

Once again, sorry for coming off as an ***.

John

 

OldSStroker thanks for the link. Its good to hear he's doing a little better. The Pontiac meets just wouldnt be the same without him there.

 

i ported my own heads and resulted pretty well. Ended up taking me 4 months to finish because of school and work. I used the Standard Abrasives kit, then got some nice carbide bits, and also used some pictures from a guy who was seling some ported LT1's on ebay. Mine ended up flow as well as AFR 210's. Too bad at the time of purchase, i didn't know open chamber heads suck a**, so i'm down about 30-40hp. But still ,i did it my self, and i was damn proud of it. So, get that book, check out the SA kit and pamplet, and let it rip.

 

no problem.

 

Menlatin theres allways angle milling...

 

Perry
Well compression isn't the issue. its the chamber shape. The jagged trapizoid, from what i've been told, has a horrible burn pattern. I hope we're not hi-jacking this thread.

 

"The West Point of Automotive Engineering"

...sorry, shameless plug

 

Are there a math calc to know how much the heads flow witout a machine flow

 

nope not really, the only way (that i'm aware of) to find flow by using math is if its a relatively "regular" shape. The equation of a port must be insane