Well its about time I tooled up (properly this time) and ported another head for the race car. But there's so many options now.

I was just curious on everyones opinions, experiences and knowledge on the relevent tooling...ie brands makes models on die grinders, electric or pneumatic ??? Cutting tips: Which one were the most useful?? part no's??

I have a complete Snap-on Tungsten Carbide burr set that cost me a small fortune, but has lasted 12 years so far so good. Pneumatic is the only way to go because ya can`t beat the power or speed and sheer NOISE value

I've got both pneumatic and electric and found the electric to be better for a number of reasons.

-The compressor is not constantly cranking up.
-You have constant speed, not varying with tank pressure.
-The electric one doesn't stall when the going gets tough.
-Variable speed via thumb wheel.
-Much quieter to work with, makes a big difference when you're working with it for 4-5 hours non stop.

Oh, and did I mention the price I paid for the electric one? $39, Ozito router from Bunnings, just removed the routing frame and now I've got a die grinder that I can just plug in and go.

As for porting tools go to Repco or Bursons and ask for a Deluxe Porting Kit, has all the emery drums, stones, flap wheels and polishers for the job and should only set you back about $120

My two cents..............

If you're really serious about porting your heads, go & see a performance shop that has an extrusion porting machine....
These things are magic.... You bolt your heads to a machine that uses a compressed abrasive paste that extrudes through your ports etc. You can adjust the machine to give your required flow characterisitcs as you go. You can even bolt bits such as your inlet maifold that you want match-ported.
Also - you don't get that serrated kind of finish that you get from a porting tool too.

Saves stuffing around with a porting tool only to find you're out of whack when you get your head on a flow bench.

Costs $$$, but worth it for the quality.

not a fan of extrusion porting - you have little to no control of what material is removed. I don't like leaving things in the hands of the gods...

Most of the time, you don't want to touch the base of the port or the tight radius to the valve seat. You'll want to completely remove the valve guide boss etc. Leave extrusion porting for EFI manifolds you can't get far enough into with a burr.

one or two good burrs will see you through for porting. Stones are useless for alloy. Get ones with long shafts. A football shaped one and a round one will do most of the stuff you ever want to do in a port. But yes, they're not cheap.

that 'serrated kind of finish' is actually good for atomisation and power. polishing is a thing of the past.

Actually you'll probably find that the emery drums are the best things to use on an alloy head because they are not prone to bite in like carbide burrs do.

And I'd also have to disagree with your thoughts on not touching the short radius (this is where the majority of most flow improvements can be made) and removing all the valve guide boss (shaping it properly to curve the flow around the valve stem will actually give better flow figures).

Oh and whilst I'm disagreeing with you I may as well mention that the roughness of the inlet port surface has no effect on atomisation, it actually helps capture air particles on the wall which then reduce the friction created from the overall flow of the air / fuel mixture passing, granted, not a lot of heat is generated by it but it does help to give a couple of percent increase to the flow rate.

One area you should polish though is the combustion chamber, this reduces the amount of energy lost on combustion through heat transfer to the head.

Thanks for the tips so far everyone - even though there is some difference of opinion. Thats life I guess!!

I'll be sure to drop into Bunnings tonight and check out this Ozito router. I'm particularly curious to see the shape of it without the parts you must detach, just to see how difficult it is to get into those hard to reach places.

The comment about the emery paper is interesting too!! I'll make sure I give it a go!! I thought that HSS cutting bits with course teeth would have been the prefered tip though...Oh well - horses for courses I guess.

I was comtimplating get a flow bench at my house.So I could teach myself to be a great head porter.

And what better way than just doing tons of heads from a wrecker to teach yourself.

The only way to mesure your port size in a backyard situation or to have a little idea that your sizes arent all out of wack ..Try this .Once your happy wit the port work on one round intake port clean it up and put the valve back in seal it with a bit of grease .Using a large syringe fill the port with water >take note of how much it t akes to fill it and try and get the rest the same .At least then you will some form of mesurement to compare to any other heads you do in the fiture

Here is a link to the porting kit I was talking about
Deluxe Porting Kit