After spending thousands into everything else but the motor, its come time to start. For now, its a bolt on car. So to get it rollin', im pullin the heads, gettin um milled .0030, 1.6 rockers, re-sprung, new seals, retainers blah blah. Everything but major port work. What gains can i expect from this. I will be doing a cam later on in the year but getting this done now and out of the way. So by bumping the compression up and 1.6 rockers what can i expect?

 

If it was me I would wait until you decide to get the heads ported before I'd pull them. But still go ahead with new springs and 1.6 rockers though. I don't have no numbers or times but when I done springs and rockers on my old 165k motor it was a bigger improvement than longtubes was.

 

I would suggest doing springs and a cam if you are not going to port the heads now. I dont know how much you would gain from shaveing the heads, but I think a cam would produce superior results. Also if you have a cam in mind for later on, check and see if piston to valve clearence is going to be sufficient. I ran into this problem on an LS1 a few months ago and the pistons under the cowl are kinda hard to notch.

If leave you heads on, you can still port match the heads to the intake. I think this is a good thing because the head runner is much smaller than the intake and intake gasket. First cut out a piece of cardboard to cover the valley pan and tape that down. Make sure the valve covers are on. Tape over all remaining holes and runners that are not the one that is being worked on. Take a marker (I like red) and color the area around the port. Then put the intake gasket on and scribe the area of the port that needs to be removed with a scribe or sharp nail. Then tape over the other runners. Fill the runner being worked on tightly with rags to a level where the grinder will not grab a rag. Grind the scribed area away and smoothly radius it into the port about an inch or inch and a half. Periodically during grinding get out the biggest shop vac you can get your hands on and clean the metal debris, remember cleanliness is next to godliness. Once you are done with a port get the vac and use it while slowly pulling out the rags. Also make sure you get all of the rags so nothing goes through the engine. Then move on to the next runner. I also did this to the intake while it was off but not very much material needed to removed.

If you do not want to go this route sorry for wasting your time, but it made my car feel a little faster on the top end. I then did the hotcam and gained almost 10 mph in the 1/4 mile. I was trapping 96 and now I am trapping upper 105. The cam and springs were also installed in the car. I am all about the engine bay machine shop.

 

thanks for allthe info. I did a lot of port matching on my iroc i had. As for piston to valve clearance, i talk to bret about a custom ground cam and hes gonna make one specificly for milled heads. And i dont have a bunch of money to spend on getting my heads ported out. When that time comes ill just get a set of AFR heads. And to be honest, that will be a LONG time to come. So for now and the next couple years to come, ill do my heads now for the summer and get a cam ground for them this comming up winter. I know it sucks and i wish i could do a cam now but i got a lot of bills and lack of funds so i gotta do what i can right now. So when i do the cam i dont need to pull the heads off again and i know there ready to go.

 

I would say if you can do your own port work do as much as you can safely do then have it flow benched for about $50 that way you can get the cam made for exactly how the heads flow and will see the best gain with out the expensive port work.

 

That is true. I figured i would at least clean up the ports and not soo much take off material but just smooth it out.

 

Here this might help here is an example of a BRE cam on an LT1 with never removed heads.

http://64.65.63.61/forums/showthread...et+bauer+heads

 

hell yea, thanks formula! I just went to my local machine shop and its $250pr. to mill .0030, 3-angle the valves and install everything on the heads. So $250 for all that seems real good. And make my power even a little more. I plan on doing a custom cam from Bret Bauer but like i said, need to do it in steps. And doign the heads now will give me a little more power for the time being.

 

i called hi-flow heads and they want $1800 to port my heads. Deff. out of the question for thoes who say i should.