A Different Sort of Build Thread

[littlemissGTO]

Tonight I finished up porting one of the cylinder heads. There are two things I don't like about porting. One is I'm constantly afraid I'm going to hit water and the other is flying aluminum. That stuff gets EVERYWHERE. I'm waiting for some crosshatches from Goodson to show up so I can finish the heads the way I want (getting rid of the tool marks) and then I'll flow them.

[TIMMAY!!!]

Oh swweeeeett... I've never done porting, and I'd probably pay a machine shop to do it if I were going to. I'd fuck it up. :thumbsup:

[Strakele]

Looking great so far! Awesome work. I totally understand the flying metal thing... I've been doing machining work while waiting for my Air Force training to start. It does get everywhere.

[Hi-FiDelity]

You are far braver than I, you couldn't pay me to port the heads on my car.

[littlemissGTO]

You are far braver than I, you couldn't pay me to port the heads on my car.

If I hadn't had some experience porting heads before, I don't think I would have been brave enough to port them myself either.

[astrochex]

I'm still curious what you used to guide you in the porting, that is, how much material to remove from where. Have you study other GTO ported heads?

I am insanely jealous that you have the ability and means to do this yourself.

[littlemissGTO]

I'm still curious what you used to guide you in the porting, that is, how much material to remove from where. Have you study other GTO ported heads?

I am insanely jealous that you have the ability and means to do this yourself.

How much material to remove is always a question as all heads are different. You can use tools that measure the thickness of the metal in the heads. This is going to sound horrible, but a lot of fingering is done to feel for large bumps or spots that are thinning. Experience also says, take it slow and there's no need to grind to China as a little bit goes a LONG way.
I went to school for this, and I absolutely love what I'm doing. I take a lot of pride in what I do and this is going to be like the crown jewel of achievements for me.

[astrochex]

I get it.

Again, kudos to you for being able to do what you love.

If I could do it all over again, what you're doing is probably the route I would have taken.

[littlemissGTO]

I should have known my shop time was going to be a bit trying considering the UPS didn't get here with my crank and rods until 5:30PM. Typically the drivers gets here before 1PM. So with that said here's what got accomplished and didn't get accomplished last night.
I was a bit surpised to find that the new crank has key ways. I'm going to have to find out if this means I need to find a keyed balancer or not.


Pretty oil holes.

Looks like it needed a little weight added.

New rods


Since the rods and the crank were so freaking cold, I decided it's time to go flow the heads so I can get stock and ported numbers.

This is where the night got difficult. If I light the IT guys crotch on fire, I would. I'm apologize to the IT guys reading this. The reason I want to do this is because he didn't save any of the important files, you know like calibration details, before he swapped hard drives. The numbers that the bench is putting out are way skewed. So a few phone calls were made this morning to try to get the bench recalibrated so I can get some accurate numbers. I'm sorry, I won't be posting stock vs ported numbers in this update.
Tonight I will weigh the rods and start balancing the rotating assembly and mock up. Tomorrow I will start short block assembly and get the cam degreed.

[IBcivic]

If your crank is externally balanced, the torsional damper has to be keyed.

Nice I-Beam rods! Are they already polished and peened, out of the box?