happysem

iTrader: (5)

Got it taken off today, woohoo!

Wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be, hopefully I labeled enough for tomorrow's install so I don't have to come back asking "what is this and where does it go?" lol!

Any who, a quick couple of pictures to show my progress:







Black is stock ported LT1 intake that I painted.

Can anyone ID what the hell this thing is?
I dropped a ratchet behind the manifold and was trying to find it when I pulled this thing out, I don't think it was attached to anything.
It has a really thin plastic orange screen thing on it.






Sorry for the blurry pics, best my digital could do.



And why the hell are the factory head ports (technical term?) shaped like this? They taper inwards at the top?
My stock intake had perfectly rectangular versions, that would have bottlenecked anyway, the ported one is slightly larger than my stock one so I will still have the same problem.

I have an LT4 intake that is not ported or anything and it has the same shape as my head ports, why is that?

Makes me mad to see how badly even the stock set up is lined up, makes me want to pull the heads and have them ported... Probably not worth it on a stock cam though? Maybe in the future I will cam it and do it then.

speed_demon24

iTrader: (6)

That's why ported intake manifolds do more harm than good with stock heads. Complete waste of money for a potential performance loss.

collier341

iTrader: (5)

that piece you found looks like what's left of your oil pressure sensor..

Johnny-LT1-runner

iTrader: (15)

Yep, that orange thing is the diaphragm that goes to the oil pressure sending unit.

shbox

People really need to resize pics for posting. Have mercy on the low bandwidth folk.

hyperzone

haha.. having to scroll left and right to read the posts ususally wears me out. ha!

Oh, and that thing your holding in your hand is whats left of your oil pressure sensor.

meine96ws6

iTrader: (4)

so now what? you might as well pull the rest of the heads out and have them ported as well..

RamAir95TA

iTrader: (2)

Might as well right? I mean, it's not like you NEED a more aggressive cam to take advantage of the additional airflow/port velocity, right? And everyone has $2000 laying around!

Badazz 97 TA

iTrader: (18)

lol. Its easy to spend someone elses money, Isnt it?

leadfoot4

iTrader: (1)

......and the $5-600 for a set of headers and hi-flow Y-pipe, to make use of the parts "upstream".

1badzee

iTrader: (12)

Hey, you know what copyright means, right?

collier341

iTrader: (5)

Idn I must not, but I know what google image search is though.

happysem

iTrader: (5)

I was thinking about it, I don't need something crazy like LE or AI's setups, but I'd like it for the concept.

This car will probably get a cam eventually, so I might look into it.
How do you guys feel about ported heads with stock cam? LOL!

My step dad is a machinist and used to work on cars a lot when he was younger so I was going to have him take a look and see if he can match them a bit better, time to find out what he knows!

It also sounds like the 93-95 cars got the rectangle runners on the intake manifold that were not matched to the heads but the 96-97 cars did?

What gives GM?!

happysem

iTrader: (5)

Sorry for the size lol, it was really late...I'll see if I can fix that now.

Oh, and I don't have to scroll side to side, my monitor is big enough, lol.

1badzee

iTrader: (12)

Sure don't lol

collier341

iTrader: (5)

Could you please elaborate on your issue with me sharing this image??

I didn't try to claim it as my own. And I'm sure if Shbox had an issue with it he would've said so a few posts up.

1badzee

iTrader: (12)

No issue here. Shouldn't bother you either. Just sayin'

happysem

iTrader: (5)

So I talked with my step dad and he sounds pretty confident with being able to work on my heads.
He said he would definitely be able to open up the ports, resurface and everything.
He's machined quite a bit of stuff for his bike and I can tell he was excited to do some more "custom" stuff.

Might even see if I can get a custom TB plate made and maybe some other goodies lol.

How hard is it to remove the heads?
If I got this far with no "major" issues, do you guys think I could do it?
I'll be searching for a guideline writeup on the removal, feel free to post if you know of one

RamAir95TA

iTrader: (2)

Unless you want a junk set of heads, leave the porting to the professionals. It is VERY easy to ruin these heads, probably easier than you or your father thinks. No disrespect to your father, but there's a reason professionals port heads for a living (and that it costs thousands of dollars). It's something that takes years of experience and trial (and unfortunately) and error to perfect.

Porting stock heads with the stock cam can actually hurt HP as well. All in all, not a real good idea, IMO.

happysem

iTrader: (5)

Oh yeah, I understand why it costs so much, but I'm not building the perfect machine, I just want to end up with something a little better than the run of the mill ones.

And if I did decide to port these, I would end up going with a cam, maybe a little later but not like years down the road or anything.
If I don't, I'll just throw the intake on and it'll be the same car as before that I'm getting bored with.
I really enjoyed tearing it down and learning how this stuff works (one of the main reasons I want to keep going)

Would it not be a bad idea if I took the heads off to check the condition of everything? What about just resurfacing them and cleaning everything up?
Or is that too much work for something thats probably just fine?
Car has only 70,000mi on it and to my knowledge this is as far as this thing has ever been apart.

Either way, I'm going to ask a few buddies to take a look at what I've got so far and get more opinions before I make my decision, I've got a truck I can DD for a couple of weeks if needed.

Keep throwing in your .02 everyone, its all appreciated!