I've got a set of ported heads coming and we are port matching my intake but found this:

http://www.azsupersport.com/manifold/MVC-003S.JPG
http://www.azsupersport.com/manifold/MVC-004S.JPG
http://www.azsupersport.com/manifold/MVC-005S.JPG
http://www.azsupersport.com/manifold/MVC-006S.JPG
http://www.azsupersport.com/manifold/MVC-014S.JPG
http://www.azsupersport.com/manifold/MVC-015S.JPG
http://www.azsupersport.com/manifold/MVC-016S.JPG
http://www.azsupersport.com/manifold/MVC-017S.JPG
http://www.azsupersport.com/manifold/MVC-018S.JPG
http://www.azsupersport.com/manifold/MVC-020S.JPG


Should we enlarge the area to fit the gasket?

Mike

 

If you are porting your heads.. go ahead and do it.. why wouldn't you.. I did

 

Definitely wait until you get your heads back and see how the gaskets line up to the ports on them. You don't want to open up the intake, then have the intake ports be a good bit larger than the heads. The air/fuel mixture would have to go up that step which can't be good for flow You'll want as smooth of a transition as you can.

 

To answer the ?, yes and no. Enlarge the port, but not to the (same) size of the gasket. I also agree with adioSS. Without visual inspection, you won't know if the head port opening is 'on top' of the gasket size, or a little (1/32" or so) smaller than gasket.

BTW, for those umaware, your discovery should also help with awareness of the mismatch of the pre '96 intake manifold to a set (any year) of aluminum LT1 head intake ports. The oem head ports look like the intake port shape you presented, while the oem ports of the intake/plenum were a true rectangular shape. Whereas your example (while not great, it is not bad) would have the unported intake plenum port smaller on one wall, than the ported head port, with an unported pre '96 oem intake/head assembly, the much worse/undesireable mismatch of larger into smaller exists. That is why you have the oem port shape on the manifold that you have. I trust the intake in the pix is a late '95/'96 or later.