gomer

iTrader: (13)

Have any of you guys did your own flycutting? If so, tell me your thoughts on it.. how did it turn out? What tool did you use? How much did you cut? Any special tools, besides the flycutting tool itself? Did you use a tool other than the Isky one?
THanks

JF WS6

Sorry can't answer your question, but I wanna know too. I know Fireball has done it himself..... I was thinking about this since my heads are off also. Is this easy to do?

gomer

iTrader: (13)

TTT.. Somebody chime in here.

I'm going to attempt this on my car in the next week or so. My main concern is How deep of a relief is safe on the stock pistons? Can I do a .100 or a .125???

dano73327

We mock up the engine pre assembly and check our p to v and radial clearance in the valve relief's then put each piston in a special vise on our mill and use a fly cutter to cut the valve reliefs to the proper diameter, depth, and angle. I have known some people who have used the isky tools and it worked for them but this is a pretty ghetto way to do things because you are usually doing this without disassembling the rotating assy and there arent any real accurate ways to gauge the depth of your cut. You can mark the stem of the tool in reference to the top of the valve guide once you have the first piston cut and have verified p to v or you can cut and measure each piston and mocking up and rechecking p to v on each cylinder but I think that if you do that once you will probably rather buy the correct pistons next time or just leave the job to a competent engine building shop.

gomer

iTrader: (13)

Your approach is the correct way, but that isn't an option for me. I was under the impression that the isky tool had an adjustable positive stop on the cutter. Have you ever seen or used the Isky tool? If so, does it have a stop that I can set after I find the correct depth I need on my first cylinder? I can just replicate that cut on the remaining 7 cylinders.

dano73327

I personally haven't used one but you may be correct. It should have some kind of stop you can adjust for bottoming. Check the Isky website or give them a call to find out which cutter they recommend for the valve size you intend on using. Good luck.

Whistler

iTrader: (46)

I've used a cutoff wheel trimmed down to 2.x inches for the intake, 1.6 for the exhaust, epoxied to a set of stock valves.

Bring each piston to TDC and make your cuts by spinning the valve with an angle head drill. put some soft clay into the relief, slice it off even with the top of the piston with a single edge razor. Pull out the sliver of clay and mic. it to get a depth measurement.
It's time consuming but it works.

A stock piston is 8MM thick at its thinnest point. I've heard of people cutting .100 before.

CamaroCain

iTrader: (1)

Call TSP and talk to Joseph, or I am sure you can send him a PM

Rod

iTrader: (5)

A friend of mine has the tool, so I looked at it for you. It does have a collar with a set screw to adj. the depth of the cut. Hope this helps.

gomer

iTrader: (13)

Thanks man! I'm feeling good about doing this. I talked to Jason @ TSP and I'm going to use their tool and head to do it with.

Damian

iTrader: (89)

Gomer are you going to cut the intake and exhaust or just intake?

gomer

iTrader: (13)

I'm going to cut both, I'm going to do some "calculating" tonight... But I'm thinking I'm going to do .100 intake and .80 exhaust. I won't know for sure until I measure everything late next week.

Damian

iTrader: (89)

What tool are you going to use? Gotta link?

gomer

iTrader: (13)

Jason from TSP is going to send me the one they use, and let me borrow it. I think it is an Isky.

Fireball

iTrader: (21)

I used the ISky tool...but be warned that my tool stuck down below the head deck surface too far to let the piston come all the way to TDC. This cost me 8 new intake valves (I was dumb and didn't verify the cuts). I eventually had to modify the backside of the tool (on a lathe) to allow the cutter to recess further in the head to allow cuts when the piston was at real TDC