As long as the 243 heads are off my car, have been thinking of getting them ported. Of course that would mean upgrading from the stock LS2 cam.

I found at least 3 different options I am looking at. TEA, Advanced Induction and Texas Speed. Want to stay cathedral port on my 6.0L LS2. Looks like they all offer packages with springs and retainers, so would only need pushrods and a cam on top of their prices.

TEA will work my existing heads with larger valves for a little over $1300. They seem to have the best flow numbers, but I find it hard to read flow tables, everybody measures them differently. They have a pretty good rep. They will also custom grind a cam for $400

http://www.totalengineairflow.com/pr...s2ls6-stage-2/

Advanced Induction will also rework the stock heads. Price with new Lunati dual valve springs is $1220. They don't post flow numbers but there are quite a few links to cars on here running them. These actually look a little more like the TEA stage 1 heads, which are maybe $100 less

http://www.advancedinduction.com/LSX...cGMLS2Head.php

For a few hundred more Texas Speed and Machine sells whole new heads for ~1600, fully ported when dual valve springs and titanium retainers. Guess I could get some of that back selling the heads I have. Their flow numbers for this stage head is a good bit less than TEA

http://texas-speed.com/p-1173-prc-st...ted-heads.aspx

 

i suggest calling and speaking with all 3 and telling them your goals and then go from there any of them can also grind cams or you can contact pat g or geoff @ eps or many others


i my self was leaning towards AI 237 tell i ran into some used heads imma try out

 

If your carbed is there any reason you don't want L92 heads? Other than having to change the intake? At around $650 shipped the LS3 heads are cheap. No way you couldn't upgrade cheaper than most prices listed and sell your old stuff for money back.

 

I would port them myself. Otherwise, I would find some used and sell the existing pieces.

 

I like this idea.

On the cam, I would probably go custom. I have seen a bunch of successful car grinds on here ground on 110LSA. Just have the pick the right duration and ICL for your desired RPM range.

 

How hard is it to port yourself? Cause I'm in the same boat wanting to get my heads ported/polished, etc...would this mean that i'll have to change springs again etc? Everything in my car has approximately 300 miles on it...#no hijack

 

That probably makes a lot more sense. I can get new heads and a vic jr for just over a grand from Summit. Selling the 243's and GMPP single plane should easily pay for a cam and matching set of springs. Guess I need to throw in the price of new rockers too.

 

Wouldn't mind knowing the answer myself.

 

GM HighTech had a good article on porting the 317s a couple months ago. They went into pretty good detail on how to do it yourself. As cheap as 317s are , I am thinking about picking a set up, just to try it. Your 243s are practically identical to the 317s, as far as the ports go. If it were me, Id get the article and go for it. Just my .02.

 

I have done about 10 extensive port jobs on various types of heads and tested my results on 3 pair on a flow bench. I have seen the real world results at the drag strip on most every pair. I have also thrown about 3 or 4 pair of "practice" heads in the scrap heap when I was done "learning" on them too.

I am not intending to sound flip, but here is how I will explain it:

Anyone and I mean anyone can "port" and "polish" a cylinder head. A chimpanzee can do it. In fact, I have seen some work that looked as if done by chimpanzees.

The thing about porting is that unless you have substantial experience measuring the results you achieved or have been taught sound principles in a hands on environment, you have no idea if what you are doing is even an improvement. You can speculate. You may get enough right for an improvement, you may not.

The best head porters I have ever known constantly tested and tweaked their results on a flow bench and then had real world feedback from their customer's race results. They know things like: The ideal short side radius arc leading into the valve area, how much to accentuate or diminish the port bias, what is the best shape to make the valve guide boss, the best diameter to enlarge to bowl behind the valve, whether a particular exhaust port will benefit from a D shaped port or an more oval shape, etc etc etc.

In the old days, most heads flowed like crap. There was a ton of extra material in the bowl area underneath the valve job and the valve guide bosses were also large a obstructive. You could hack the hell out of a small block Chevy or big block Mopar head and almost be assured to come out ahead just by opening it up. That is not the case with the new LS heads. If you cut these in the wrong place, you could actually hurt flow. I remember back in the day, people would pass around "port templates". They were pieces of paper you would slide in the intake port entrance and into the valve bowl to show you where to cut. That is how much extra material was in those old cast iron factory heads in the muscle car days.

There is also the all too often overlooked metric of port to port consistency. If you do not modify every port exactly the same, each cylinder will perform differently. This will make creating the ideal tune nearly impossible and likely decrease performance. Port to port inconsistency is even more important when running factory fuel injection that injects the same amount of fuel into each port regardless of port flow variation. This will lead to some cylinder being richer and some leaner. Not good.

Am I saying don't do it? Absolutely not! There are great books on the topic by people like David Vizard who can give you pictures and theory and certainly get you started on the road to becoming proficient. However, the likelihood that you will buy some carbide bits, a die grinder or even more likely a dremel (LOL) and get great results on your first few pairs like a professionally done or CNC head is about the same odds as making the 2016 olympics.

For what it is worth, I have an extraordinary amount of experience compared to most. I have the equipment to do it and I bought CNC'd heads and was thrilled with the value.