Has anyone on here ported thier own heads? What is the process and what are the possible downfalls of doing this yourself?

 

yeah ppl have done it on here, i did an iron jeep head myself and it turned out alright. I wouldn't do your own unless you are a professional at it because these heads are alluminum and the water jackets run real close to the ports and chambers. I think you would be better off just buying a set. Also there is loads of information on this in the ls1 internal seciton, try doin a search in that section.

 

I hear the same things as tdogg too. The new style heads are a little different than the old cast iron models. You can do some basic cleanups but for porting you can do more harm than good.
Check for the performance manuals on eBay titled "LS1/LS6 Performance", they have some good info on home porting if you want to give it a shot.
Good luck, keep us up on the work!

 

I did my own heads but will go ahead and tell you on the exhaust side you cant port very much because I found out the hard way. The other thing is it takes alot of time to do a set of heads 8+ hours. I will tell you though if you do it right you can tell a difference and it feels awesome nowing you done it yourself.

 

I hand ported the heads that are on slowprocesses motor I built. It takes a long time to do it by hand. I probably had 20 hours in those heads with the porting, the blending, and the polishing. Don't even think about using a dremel. I bought a flex shaft 1/4" rotary tool and it worked great.

 

Yeah I think I had a total of like 16 hours in my heads and they turned out great. I used a air grinder with a carbide cutter and lots of sand paper bits.

 

how did you guys learn how to port the heads Id love to get hold of some reading or instructional video

 

I would say I 'ported' mine but rather a good 'clean-up' job. I blended the bowls to the valve seats, smoothed out the valve guides and polished the runners and combustion chambers. This was my first set and took me about 12 hours onthe first one and another 8 or so on the second one. I used a tree shaped soft metal carbide bit, Standard Abrasive's porting kit and a die grinder. I feel they came out pretty good.

 

You can get a kit from jegs or summit that comes with a basic guide to porting but I learned from hanging down at my local machine shop.

 

What do you guys think you gained with the more mild port and polish jobs? Would it require significant changes to VE tables or is it just timing and fuel like most mods? Are their specific areas to concentrate on and others to avoid or do you simply remove as much as is safely possible?