A guy I know has quoted me $450 to port my LT1 castings. He's got one the fastest LT1 cars in the area and I know he's good at what he does. The question is... what is so special about AI or Loyd's heads? I mean, the fully ported heads from AI are $1800. I know "supply and demand" plays a role here, but what is so much better about "popular" head porters that makes the price 4 times higher?

I know you can't always take the cheap way out, and I'm a firm believer that you get what you pay for... but I could do a lot of things with the $1350 I would save. What kind of luck have some of you had with Home, hand-ported heads?

I've read all about AI's heads on their website... I need opinions from people who don't have a biased opinion or have experimented with each option.

 

Some on the board have had pretty good results porting their heads themselves. And your right about the $1300 difference, that adds up to a lot of parts.

Problem is: How many people have screwed their stuff up and just not posted the fact that they did damage? Probably not many are willing to admit that they ruined a set of heads.

 

Home ported vs. AI wouldn't even be in the same catagory. People pay the money for a reason.

 

Can he flow his on a comparable bench and see what you get?

If he can get 250/190cfm at .550 lift with good mid lift #s then its worth the asking price.

 

I don't want to ruin the heads... I know this guy did mess up a set of AFR's once, but that was when he was first getting started with his porting. He's done many sets since then with no problems.

 

thats what i was going to say, if they flow well, then its hard to beat the price.

 

AI' heads (and other companies.. *ahem*) include valve jobs, surfacing, valves and valve springs/retainers etc all in that price.

 

Yes that's true. I was told that you really didn't need the valve job unless you were going with forced induction... is this true?

 

Actually a good valvejob with the proper angles will net quite a bit of flow over the stock type valvejob, I would have him port them then have a performance valvejob done then have the job blended in, also have your valves back-cut, and check the heads for flatness.

 

theres probably thousands of guys out there who have been porting heads for 40+ years that would destroy the big name guys at all lifts, velocity, blah blah...go to a track with low budget/high hp old school rides and i gurantee theres one headman that everyone will suggest....JMHO

 

Yep the LT1 is basicly a SBC. After they figure out the thickness everywhere they can do the same tricks that they have done for years to reg SBCs.

A shop here in Oklahoma City ported a set of LT1 heads with trmendous results (I'll get the #s from the guy) , he charged 600$ for the porting.

 

For $450 you get a bare head.

For $1800 you get a completely ported, flowtested, pressure checked ready to bolt on head. If you look over the site, you can have just the porting done for the same price as your buddy. You're not comparing "apples" to "apples" here. You're talking about a completely ported and ready to bolt on head vs just a port job.

JMO!

 

As has been stated many times (beaten to death, literally) there is more to head porting than getting 'bragging-right' flow numbers. As stated earlier in this thread, you get what you pay for.

 

Thanks for the responses guys.

 

he can get more than that on the intake side. and another thing is that a real porter will flow the head and only be a .5% diference in each runner.

i messed up a set of heads trying it myself, and it was a learning experiance, to say the least i learned to let someone that knows what there doing do it.

thats why i pick up my heads from loyd this week.