Hand Porting?

[moroun]

I can't afford to port my heads, not anytime soon, or my intake manifold. But there is a local guy who's had a good success on chevy/ford heads. Local car guys are telling me to let him take a swing at my 6.1 heads and intake manifold... he DOES have a flow bench n he's rather cheap from what i head. has anyone showed real success from hand porting? should i let him try??

[slideway]

My heads are also hand ported, None the less you need to verify the porting work a person has done on other engines since flow numbers don't tell the whole story. There's also port velocity to consider and a porter needs to balance both.

[moroun]

Ive seen the other vehicles he's done. Corvettes, Camaros. All of them have improved on the dyno. One with a 40hp gain at the wheels. But they're mostly LS motors, not a single hemi

[slideway]

If he's good and he's inexpensive it's a no brainer, But good porters don't usually come cheap since it's a hard way to make a living. And don't forget to get the most out of them you will need a good valve job and new springs and what not so you have to factor that all in.

[moroun]

Lol now ur not talking my language. I know enough about motors in general I guess but details about heads and came and lift blah blah I'm lost. Valve job...I assumed would be done with the heads. And could I just order springs and he would install them when he did the heads? Or am I just retarded haha. Keep in mind this isn't his day job. Just someone with access to the tools needed and lots of practice

[EXTREME]

I'd be scared to let the guy do anything if he had never done a Hemi before... Like stated above, flow benches aren't the only tool needed. Years ago I hand ported a set of heads from a 6.0L chevy and gained big time on the flow bench, but on an N/A and otherwise stock engine I lost power big time. Not putting the guy down or telling you not to do it... just some education on what can happen if he over ports because it's his first rodeo on a dodge product. Depending on what head you have some are not readily available if he screws one up.

Good luck!

[TanT]

If it was my decision to make and went with it....I would tell the guy to just remove the casting material, do not reshape the port, just remove the casting material and retain the factory ports shape, also to port match the manifold and heads openings to the gasket. Along with a good valve job. Only reason to upgrade your springs is if you are changing your cam, if not, stick with stock springs. While you're at it and have the heads off, bring your stock shorty headers as well, have him clean up the exhaust ports welds in the headers and port match openings to gasket both heads and headers. Doing all of this, you should see a nice gain. No loss of velocity, and gain substantial flow.

[moroun]

I've got a big cam I the car and stock heads, in losing a ton of power to those heads. I've also got long tubes on the car from a 5.7 but matched to 6.1 exhaust ports. I just want to have a decent porting done and have the intake matched to the throttle body (90mm). They're the 6.1 head and I realize they're hard to get your hands on. That's why I'm so skeptical about the whole thing but I've been driving the car like this for over a year and I want to try and get a little more power out of her this year...heads are my biggest obstacle and I need a better tune

[todd0218]

can I ask your reason in running a 90mm TB?

[TanT]

If you have an aftermarket cam, your springs should already be upgraded...If not, do it...soon.

I would still just have him remove the casting material and port match to the manni/intake ports to gasket.

[moroun]

I just came a cross a good deal on one when I ordered all the parts to swap to a 6.1zzz ordered it. I'm aware now that it's rather useless