Tips on porting my head and installing a 416 kit

[exrider123]

I've decided on porting my head and installing my 416 myself when it comes, because I was told porting your head isnt that hard and any chance I get to do anything mechanical I take so, does anybody have any experience or tips on porting a head.

[hondafox440]

"Porting" an engine actually involved changing the shape of the ports by welding, cutting, and grinding. There are some excellent articles on porting 2 stroke on MacDizzy (http://www.macdizzy.com/thread_spread.htm). I assume what you are doing is just cleaning up and polishing where the valve seats. If so, make sure you do not alter the shape and size of it, because that would cause negative effects in most cases. I would just get a polishing wheel (like the cotton/fabric ones that come in the Dremel kit) and use that to clean up any minute irregularities in the port area.

[L.Vegas400]

i consider myself very mechanicly inclined and i wouldnt even do my own. i was also a welder and fabricator for several years. when i started my project i looked into doing it myself, found some info on the web, after reading what all goes into a functional, properly ported head, i said noper. it cost me $135 to get my done. matched intake,and exhaust opened up to the size of the header. if have looked at your exhaust opening, you can see thats between 1/8 and 1/4 of an inch of material. a little piece of advice, have someone else do it, unless you are set on doing it yourself. my $.02

[cals400ex]

i agree, have a professional do it. just making the ports smooth and big doesn't mean more power. more than likely, you will lose power unless you plan on just cleaning it up a big. from what i read, volume of the ports is not the key, but velocity is. i would let someone else do it if it was me. good luck on your decision.

[speedy400]

I did it myself, my tips-


mid-top end power-
-knife edge the bridge on the intake side, KNIFE EDGE!
-widen the intake sides, but not too far.
-port the intake boot(carb to head ports), port only the head side, remember not to port too much because oterhwise the rubber ring gasket could get inthe way.
-port where the intake boot meets the head(port that to the size of the ported boot)
-also on the intake bridge,make it more in the shape of a "I", stock they looks kinda like "OO", the bridge is rounded on the top and bottom, square it off.
-in the intake where it turns down the meet the valve, make the curve on the bottom smoother, less abrupt.
-do ^ also to the exhaust side except more, make the exhaust side as straight threw as possible. make the exhaust side ports, bigger, but not that the head pipe is smaller than the port.
-use emery cloth to make the exhaust side near a mirror finish.


-bottom end power-
honestly I don't know




-tools you'd need-
-dremmel-I've learned it helps to have it on a slower speed setting.
-dremmel sand paper dowles/grinding wheels for the dremmel
-smaller ^
-wire wheel for the dremmel to cleen your head from carbon and ports from carbon
-emery cloth, your choice how smooth you want it


the tools for me was like 20$ I think
experiance-priceless
-darren

[speedy400]

some pics of my ported head-
http://community.webshots.com/album/83428951HZCBta
-darren

[josh]

there is some reallllly usefull information on porting heads at www.fordmuscle.com just go to the forums section and then porting section, they normally deal with v8's, but just limit the knowledge to one cylander and you will be fine and if you read through most the stuff you can find step by step guides on how to do it and the spots you shouldn't touch, check it out it won't hurt any, and many of those guys are extremely mechanically inclined, so if you get in touch with some of them, they could deffinately help you out with almost any question you might have about anything that runs off gasoline

[exrider123]

Thanks for all the help everone.

[yzbill]

i would not port the head , polishing is one thing but if you dont have the head flowed before and after you are just guessing and chances are you will make it worse. Also velocity is critical and if you make an imperfection in there you will have dead space that will mess up the velocity. why not just have gtthunder do a cleanup port job for like $50 they have all the neccasery tools and more importantly knowledge on porting the head. I am not saying that your not capable of doing it it just is real risky:eek2: bottom line the head needs to be flowed regardless of who does it in order to tell if it flows better.