Project Farm just did a comparison of carbide burrs. If you’re looking for quality burrs, bits, etc. it’s difficult to find much better than Cle-Line. Quality cutting tools for decades. Made in USA.
I found porting cast iron heads with a Burr use a fine tooth For removing large Amount of material Doesn't Grab and bounce around as much Takes a little longer But end up with a nice finish not much clean up And you don't have A bunch Micro metal splinters All over your shop and in your hands
Nice video Tony. I do like the informative solo content. Talk about optimal compression ratio sometimes. What is optimal compression for any ICE? What does shaving a head or decking a block really get you? How about thinner head gaskets?
Optimal depends on how it will be used. Race gas would mean you can run more compression. But, don’t particularly want to run race gas on the street. Ultimately it’s a balancing act. More compression is more power and better response. To much and it’ll spark knock and detonate. It also depends on the design of the heads and the engine. Smaller bores can usually get away with more compression. So, there is no simple answer. Stock they’re not usually pushing the limits so bumping compression about .5 shouldn’t cause a lot of problems if you run premium. Otherwise it’d take research on a specific combination to decide how far you can go.
Fantastic video U.T.....! ! keep'm coming....! Simple improvments that will/could net large gains...! excelent job explaning the basics ....! Thank u...!
MSC Industrial supply sells some high quality carbides in case anyone is looking. Graingers are still pretty good little less $. Agree with UT on the cheapie kits. Lots of those kits dont even have the proper ones for messing ith heads. A flame shaped one, an oval for the most part are all you need. 60 or 80 grit cartridge rolls thats it. I have TONS of ones Ill never use..guess I cant offer them up here without consequence lol Like to keep a used one of ea that are worn for certain places. If you buy a high speed grinder thats electric call Foredom and order up a pedal (Speed) control. Have metal...or plastic ones for cheap High quality so you have lots more control. Less speed=more accuracy less mistakes. If the 3 inchers arent long enough buy a 6" and cut it down to preferred size that way it wont whip out of round.
When I was in my High School auto shop, I pulled the heads on my 1971 Pontiac. One of the instructors said, “Say what you want about Pontiac, but they have fully machined combustion chambers.” And they did.
@@judythomas2939 yep , I worked in an engine shop, and I was redoing an engine at home. Bores looked good,no need to bring it into work, so the cylinder guy said watch the hone machine operate and become one with it😄 So I did😄 Really slow rpm, like 200rpms or so and shove that sucker up and down as fast as you can. I had a spare block to test on so when I did mine it came out mint. That was early 2000s and I had like 7k for parts in it, I can't imagine what it woulda cost to just drop it off at a shop.
Foredom brand foot pedals hands free speed control...the best!!! I like taking the tootsie rolls and making them completely true by running them against another piece of sandpaper on a flat surface. Finish comes out perfect
I once drank about 50 gallons of beer over several weeks after work “detailing” some ford 351 Windsor heads. Well it was actually quite extensive surgery. People would about shit themselves when they saw a 302 turn over 9k rpm with ford cast iron heads. It was standing an all steel and glass maverik on its ass for almost the entire first gear in the adapted power glide tranny. More fun than a sack of monkeys. ;)
Not bullshitting. This car had 5:38 gears. The first stage of the rev limiter was 5500 second was 8800. Ran the 1/8 mile in the low 7s When you let go of the trans brake you saw nothing but the hood and the sky. Not even close to a street car. The tattle tale tack read over 9k most of the time. Had the big plug Windsor heads with a ton of custom work done to them. This was back in the mid to late 80s before everybody made aluminum heads for it.
My late father, owned two 1970 roadrunners. Both had 383 magnums and 727 torque flight transmissions. One wouldn’t pull your hat off your head. The other, was the fastest car he ever owned.
Had a 68 RR pure stock , early 67 production it would run mid 14, granny shifting it at Lions drag strip, even Ronnie Sox didn't believe it until he saw the time slips.
After spending roughly 25 years in the foundry game I can tell you there are countless ways a casting can be flawed. It sounds like high production always trumped quality and consistency.
@@bobkanno6797 Lyons!! Was taken there as a little kid by my uncle, terminal island also. By the time I started driving there was only LACR for quarter mile. Was there for their last test n tune night Now theres only Famoso, hours north just too far for me to go these days.
Excellent video Tony! Question for you: What are your thoughts on the the Direct Connection/Mopar Performance big block cylinder head porting templates? I had a '70 Challenger RT/SE 383/4 spd I was going to use them the cars 906 heads but sold the car. I just found the unused package a while ago when digging through some stuff. It came with plastic sheeting that you cut to size using the printed templates. Thanks in advance to your answer!
I was about to ask the same question and you beat me to it. Are used the direct connection template on the same 516 heads Tony’s working on and followed the template to the T and then had bigger valves installed in the heads. I have the motor sitting in a 65 sport fury 383 4 speed convertible project but lost interest and never cranked the motor, so I don’t know if all that work paid off. Maybe I’ll ask that question in one of his live chat
I'm sure a lot of people have heard it Mopar stands for mama's old pig aint running. it reminds me when I was a kid. my grandma had 4 door may be duster but like seventies police cruiser Model .with A 440 She was like 75 years old and went to visit my dad tuned it up and We went for a ride. My dad punched it over this bridge. that thing burned tire over the entire bridge and it was awesome. Pop said maybe grandma shouldn't have this car.
I finally realized something Uncle Tony. Watching this channel is like reading the old Hot Rod magazines. I loved those magazines, and I learned a lot from them. I am learning a great deal more, however from your channel. Thank you for bringing those magazines to life.
Uncle Tony was an editor for several car performance magazines back in the 80’s. He also was doing things with Fox Mustangs before it became really popular.
The ridge next to the valve seat inside the bowl will give you about 15 cfm more, face cutting the exhaust valve will yield about 7 cfm @ .050. Use a sanding roll to get the rest of the port smoothly transitioned.
This might surprise you, but I never use sandrolls. A double cut burr, maybe a stone and done. But I use a variable speed tool - it gives me good control and with proper surface speed, burrs don't load up with metal. I need 4 burr shapes: flame and egg get about 85% of things done, ball and cylinder finish the rest.
@@flinch622 it helps a lot on nitrous engines or engines with large cams where vacuum and thus runner speed is greatly reduced. The intake transitions are all I am talking about here not the surface itself. The exhaust should be mirror if possible and bowl as well. Helps control ping (knock).
port and polish, thanks man. I avoided the mistake of cheap burrs and bought quality. I watch your shows, not once, but several times. love the straight forward no bull teaching, thank you. Elmer
On my 596 smog heads I found that the short side of the bowl transitioning to the runners was more of a 90 degree turn then a nice round corner. I know most guys highly recommend that you never touch that side as its really easy to ruin your heads here, but just removing that lip and rounding that corner had a pretty big impact on my flow bench.
@@superkillr Only way to learn porting really. Short turn is the toughest to get to and can yield incredible results! Nothing comes easy eh? If I owned a flowbench nobody would ever see me again .Locked in the garage with a coffeemaker Im in heaven. Would only come out to eat and sleep
I watch a lot of RU-vid...... This is by far the coolest build (Slag Hammer) and the one I am anticipating the most!!!!!! also.... I get SO many comments on my Uncle Tony's "This is sketchy even by my standards" T shirt every time I wear it!!!!!!
Had a 69 Pontiac Ventura 10.5 compression. The thing never ran good until I started feeding it 100 low lead av gas. It was very carboned up and choked up. And real good until a guy thought it would be a good idea to shift at 6500 it w with a long rod Pontiac 400
I got a '69 Catalina with the stock 2-barrel & 10.5:1 heads. Honestly been thinking about converting it to e85 just for the boost in octane for a lot cheaper than premium
In the 80's I got a set of 360 J heads for my .60 over 318 ( align bored not honed) and I spent way more than 8 or 10 hours per head cleaning them up. I polished the exhausts but not the intakes. Do you think that polishing added any horsepower or was it just something I wasted my time on?
My personal opinion. I think you did the right thing. Because on the exhaust side it's mainly going to be exiting. So that would be good to polish and on the intake side that's going to be air and fuel mix but some of the fuel will run down the bottom of the intake runner and if you leave it just ported then it will help the fuel atomize and break apart into many different pieces as it runs down into the combustion chamber. When I was 16 I did exactly what you did and I loved those heads. I still have them.
Thank you I was having that same thing with my 1973 w-100 318 I’m going to check it out Tomorrow Saturday I ordered new Edelbrock heads for it now I got it look closer when I take it apart thank you
Awesome video, mopar al did a great job on that cage, can’t wait to see the car fly down the track! I’m also loving the solo dolo style of video, gets better every time.
I remember doing this on the 3.5 v6 in my intrepid some time back, took it from being an sorta ok pulling car, to slamming you back like it was a v8. It’s amazing what a little zen time with a die grinder, heads, and intake can do.
Reminds me of a set of factory Pontiac 455 heads I had. Never even thought of doing a port job before I got them. When I got these heads it literally looked like they were cast in volcanic cinder. Lots of slag and uneven surfaces. Took them to a mechanic to have them smoothed out. Guy said he got carried away and did what he called a stage 2 port job. Major difference between before and after.
Hehe I love porting, depending on how bad they are to begin with you'll see it wake up. I can't even leave the lawnmower ports alone if I've got it torn down. That put some pep in it's step. Port everything in the whole frickin world.
@@MrTheHillfolk Got obsessed with it around 2004 after I had Mamo port a set of Dart Conquest heads forme. I could watch him geek out on them for hours on end. Back before the Eliminators were around they were still in pacoima Learned quite a bit. Wish Id known about porting back when I was a teen and had lots of musclecars.
man I went crazy on my 360 magnum heads. Took out a lot of metal, smoothed everything, made it all swoopy and curvy, and I sharpened the holes that the valves go though. By the way I did this on cracked heads. Had the seats and valves machined by a good shop. Now here is where it gets weird. I made a mistake and somehow two of the head bolts didn't tighten down on number one cylinder. But those things ran really good when the engine was cold it still had compression and the power was very noticeable. Not hard to do go for it, if you are more careful than me you will make more power and have fun.
porting cylinder heads is actually really fun especially if there aluminum cuz you can use sanding rolls instead of big ass hogging burrs and really fine tune every port without having to worry so much about going to crazy with reshaping!
True...factory castings can be so crappy that minimal work in the right areas can make you look like a hero. I cant breathe that dust though that stuff is scary bad for your lungs. Read up on what its made out of.
I’m building an AMC 360 . Those heads were very well designed but there is always room for improvement. I did some port detailing on these . I don’t have the engine back together yet but I have great expectations !
My first port job was a 4.1 ford falcon inline 6. IT could keep up with a 302 v8 ford motor. there is magic in porting. I ported my Royal Enfield bullet. I recon it could do most the race bikes in it's class now. It is just removing the little bits that are made in casting that does not work.
Fun making improvements like that on your own. REal old iron castings can be so bad just cleaning up whats there can make a difference worthwhile. Lots of todays heads or some cnced tough to improve on and worse yet some leave NO metal for you to improve upon without making a hole.
I had a 318i bought from a junk yard I went to change the intake and as I was looking down the intake ports on it I found flashing in no4 intake port it took up over 1/3 of the port. Good thing I went to change that intake .yes I ported it out .
Yea i kinda miss hours of hogging runners down, porting and everything we could do other than 3 or 4 angle valve jobs we send out. We'd grind every corner off of the whole engine,inside n out, no sharp edges for cracking or hotspots ect. Chamfered all oil holes for the easy flow, blueprint and balance everything down to the oil pump rotor tolerances, thinkn about them ole 426 solid hemi electrodes burning up( got buckets of em still,new and annilated..lol) then they came out with dual everything plugs,mags,distributors, and got crazy expensive to win. And to think bout my uncles marking plugs n torkin the spark plugs so they line up exactly according to spark fuel shielding and flame control n checking before heads installed was alien to me,why like wedge plugs design for the street,crazy,what most would laugh,and to think 1 or 2hp is nothing,but hours of ring gapping for another 1hp, lil lower oil weight for another 1hp,it all adds up,when yr working on some1 else's engine and mine is exactly the same so I thought, and they win by a just a lil bit more,you start doin as bossman(dad or uncles) says..lol. I was hard headed chevy guy till I seen the light of the 440 mo power,or mopar.
@@1996slamster I'm not debating you dude.. it's what Tony told us . I agree it looks wide as F@∅k.. the front wheel would require some maybe odd back spacing.. I'm hoping for the best.. no worries... 🤔 Narrowing the front axle would make for good Content hahaha.. peace
I made it early, very rare for me. But I know this will be legit good stuff because you speak truth. Good vid! (I haven't seen it yet but I know it's gold)
I remember those dang aggravating sharp edges inside of heads and intakes before myself, and I would always grind them out because when I would be visually checking them by feeling around looking for cracks and such they would cut my finger due to being razor sharp and also didn't want them to breaking off and getting into the cylnders and eating up the piston tops, rings, or cylnder walls. Also I was taught to always be thinking of the next guy that would be working on them which was sometimes me but not always. I've also seen that casting slag inside the head ports like you mentioned and they were everywhere you looked back then. I hated those things because of the time required to get rid of them. Another AWESOME video Uncle Tony.
Thank-you Uncle Tony for taking the time to teach, encourage and mostly inspire all of those who are thinking about doing engine work of any sort, especially the extra bits to be done if you want to take your motor to the next level without breaking the bank.
My dad talks about his fabled 68 Roadrunner 383 stick he bought while in the Corps. Says it was the fastest bone stock car he ever owned. Only was beaten once drag racing, and that was against a worked 427 Chevelle by a fender. However, he had the engine apart once and everything appeared bone stock. Not even an aftermarket cam. Maybe he benefitted from a freakishly great set of those inconsistent heads.
I'm done messing with factory cast heads there is such bigger gains on a set of aluminum cylinder heads with bigger ports, bigger valves, and less weight and they can be fixed if anything goes on with them the pros are so much better then the cons but depending on the heads they can be expensive but if you want to play you gotta play and by the time your done playing with a set of factory heads your better off buying a set of budget aluminum heads that will outflow any factory head no matter what you do to them
When making "Rate" was incentivised with additional wages/pay for foundry/factory workers is possibly a reason for slight inconsistencies. This was a very common practice with industries here in Michigan and other rust belt state's.
Rebuilt a 440 in the late 90's shit you not i pulled 1.3 lbs of casting sand out of the block. Absolutely blew me away, have not sen anything like that before or since
I don't know if this would apply to cast iron heads but back in time I sand blasted a Triumph motorcycle head and got more bottom end out of it than I was ready for. I found out later that micro profiling the walls of the intake, chamber and exhaust caused tiny swirls in the mixture along the outsides of the flow path creating a bearing effect where it would otherwise would have dragged on these surfaces. Have you ever tried this?
Haha...yes theres a lot of hackwork out there. DId my share as I was learning. Sad thing is so many on YT taking peoples money...username depicts an actual business. And they are frigging clueless!
First time head porting myself and easily have 50+ hours into one head off my 429. The other head is going a bit faster now that I'm familiar with the different burrs. Being a C8VE numbers matching engine with heads in my 'Bird, I won't get too much out of the exhaust side. But I can get 300+ cfm on the intake side if done right. 230cfm max on the exhaust side if I really want to go that far. Interesting thing is all the factory Ford 429/460 heads are capable of being ported identically with the same results. Minus the CJ/SCJ since the intake is completely larger. Only difference on the rest is chamber volume differences.
@@hotrodray6802 his are looking good on the D0VE head. I'm doing mine a little different as apparently according to Scotty Jay (parkland performance the "mad porter"), the early heads actually benefit from the injection rail on the roof and the bolt bulge. But I removed it all before I bought access to that information. Having a hard time finding a dual quad intake for two dominators to top my 429, and with that, I'm up in the air on whether or not I want to open and taper the intake side to the size of the SCJ. With proven flow to come from doing so. Was 30$ or so to get access but it has a lot of information regarding the 385 series heads and other things relating to them.
I've had some 350 Buick heads with all kinds of bad casting mismatching inside, besides having too long of an intake port, the previous era heads for the 300 and 340 V8 were miles ahead on combustion chamber, port, and manifold design. For a street/strip engine I leave the intake manifold ports smaller than the head intake ports, reduces reversion...
Yeah, same with the big blocks. The 400/430 had really clean castings with nice intake ports, but the 455s, especially the later year ones, had horribly cast intake ports.
I love the old school tech and advice! My dad taught me much in the same manner. Shade tree mechanics 101! I learned quite a few tricks that you've mentioned and some that I've never heard anybody else mention but they work!
That ledge above those exhaust valves in the combustion chamber has no business being there. Removing it won't open the chamber volume, only enhances the flow. The desing idea of that ledge is fuel economy, keeping unburnt fuel inside the chamber for next round. As for the intake ports, there's still cleaning up to do on the "short side" on the hump next to the valve seat. Best done by sand paper, just try not to grind into the seat itself.
Don’t you want to leave the intake “rough” !?? To create disturbance for proper even atomization and ignition / combustion!? Exhaust should be as smooth as glass for fastest escape
Long ago I bought a set of 906 heads off a 2 barrel 383, I don’t know if mine were representative of them all, but I was stunned when I pulled them apart, it looked as if they had used the wrong cutters under the valves. The throats were so small the big valves were of no benefit. I saw the same situation on a set of 67 HP 440 heads, under the bigger exhaust valves, the throat was the same as the standard LP head.
Hey uncle T, do you like Chuck Senatore's book ? I have read that thing a few times and learned a lot from it... just curious buddy, watching all the time and love the shows 👍👍👍👍👍✅✅✅✅✅
Direct Connection used to sell porting templates. These were cut out of plastic sheet. The stem of the template went in the guide and was the shape of the bowl. There were 4 templates to give you 4 positions ( every 45 degrees )
Good info UT! I love having a set of burrs and sandpaper rolls on hand for scenarios like this! Just smoothing out the ports on heads, intake manifolds, exhaust manifolds, shoot I even clean up the welds on my headers if there are messy welds and slag hanging into the port flow area. One thing I hear mentioned a lot from professional porters is DON'T lower the floor of the ports, exactly the reason you left the rusty low spots in the 383 heads your working on! You don't want to make that short turn radius any sharper than it has to be.
Tony, I reworked a set of 906 heads about 20 years ago, you should mention the short turn of the intake, there's power there as I'm sure you know, after the heads were done they flowed 267 on adverage, I spent hours on those heads, with them stock and a 30* back cut, car ran 10.9-11.00, after the port work, I picked up 2-3 tenths and 3-4 MPH.
I've done the head porting and polishing stuff in my kitchen on the kitchen table which is heavy, big and doubles as a work bench. 10 hours sounds about right to me. A couple hours a night for a week is what I remember spending last time I did it. That may have included new valve seals, springs etc. IF anything, at the very least port match the gaskets, intake side as well, and smoothing the crap out of the bowls. If you don't want to spend 10 hours, do that at least. I did it with a Hobo fright kit with an air grinder and a dremel, variety of grinders and sand paper rolls.
Wife loses her mind when I use the dishwasher to final clean parts, I cannot imagine what would happen if I did porting and such on the kitchen table...
Good on ya uncle Tony slaghammer looks bloody good The red roll cage makes the car look like a bloody redback spider…..!! This car is proof to my mind that all passenger domestic production cars should have a tilt front end….!!!! All the best from Melbourne Australia
66’(516’s), the 67’(915’s) are the best. I’ve ran both of those closed Chamber castings and in my opinion they both beat the (906’s) on the street. Everyone says the 906’s flow the most and maybe on the top end it could be true but the closed chamber castings are way better in my opinion. Racers from the era claimed that swapping from the open chambered (906, 452, 346) to the (516, 915)closed chambered heads would pick up a full second in the quarter, and I believe it!
They opted to not do the off-road project because Tony has a realization that he's never been an off-road kinda guy, and thus the street-freak gasser project we get to see here. I'm happy about it because I'm not a huge fan of 4-wheeled off-road vehicles unless they're nightmarishly organically-maneuvering robots on legs. Think carnivore predators but mechanical.
I gasket matched and detailed a pair of heads for a Ford Ranger V6 one time, it was astonishing how much flashing was blocking the airflow coming across the bowl. Just cleaning up the heads made a huge difference in how the vehicle ran.
Every industry seems to have quality control issues like these from time to time. High production quotas, workers taking their jobs for granted and only showing up for a pay check. Great info on this subject.
To my understanding (limited) the body’s serial number doesn’t match the frame serial number. Same thing with the 56 GMC/ Chevy. The cab was replaced years ago. I don’t have a title or Bill of Sale for the cab; only the frame. How do I get this project titled?
About how much HP gain can be made gasket matching and cleaning up ports? I’m getting an Edelbrock Performer RPM and AFR heads for my 67 Cougar with a Factory 390. I believe these parts combined with the correct cam with roller conversion, a set of JBK tri y headers should get me in the 425 HP and 500-525 FT Torque range. (Hopefully) im also converting to a Tremek 6 Speed with 3.73 gearing. Im not building a 1/4 mile car. Im building a GT touring.
That ELEPHANT GRINDER makes me Cringe😣 go to Harbor Freight and get the $30 CHIEF mini air grinder with the RED lever! Way less violent and more controlable.. Open up RIGHT BEHIND the valve seat and knock down the valve stem bosses.
I wish gasket manufacturers would make gaskets with the fire ring that is either trimmable to the bore, or are available with bore size with in .010" of the bores, 4", +.030, .040", .060" ( or more commonly available,) seens sbc gaskets are available in like 4.100, 4.180" or something, what about 265, 283, 305's & 307's with small bores, they need all the help they can get, having a gasket .050" thick, and .150" larger than the bore is really not helping anything, having a soft steel fire ring, with tiny grooves embossed in it, to allow sizing to the bore, using a sanding drum and dremel, just sand to the line, and they will all match, the bores, then on a mild street engine build, the chambers can possibly be matched to the bores, the gasket is basically the bore size, after a port detail, maybe a chamber polish, the engine with stock parts can run better than it ever has! Or make a good riunning slightly modified engine! It couldn't cost that much to make them!
Mopar guy. 😀 I guess you shouldn't or not going to smooth out the rust? Don't know enough about it. I have a 2012 Challenger RT. Looking to mod it. Very informative. Glad I watched 👀 it. I wonder how a ported and polished would flow compared to an untouched Edelbrock head?
