bingo. someone like me will do your heads for $300. they wont be worth a **** when i'm done someone that knows what they are doing and have a good reputation starts at $800 and goes up from there. you can spend 2k on a set of stock castings with some big name porters but the will be the **** when done. the top end of these motors is the most important to making power....not the cam lol. intake and heads are where these motors shine. dont skimp on the heads and intake IMO. this is why i'm using aftermarket castings and a single plane intake now.

if you on a turbo, throw all of that logic out the window and turn up the boost

 

What is the LQ4 going in? car/truck is it all out race app or fun weekend toy or dd?

You could just get some new texas speed and performance heads for around $1200 with pac spring .650 already installed.

Polishing is an old school myth for power it can actually hurt air flow if intake runner are to smooth.

The best hand porter in the world will never match the precision of a cnc machine.

If you want all out lowend tq keep the heads the way they are, if you want more top end screamer get ported heads the match nicely with an intake and cam combo

 

CNC + Hand Port = more air flow


hand porting can get where a machine cant

 

A CNC’d head is still just a digitized copy of the work performed by a craftsman. Where the CNC shines is the ability to continually reproduce the work over and over at a faster rate. The originals are still done by hand and by trial and error until the craftsman gets the flow rate and cylinder filling he is looking for before the ports are digitized and set for repeatability, which is what brings the price down so that the average Joe can afford heads that may be otherwise out of their reach. So I wouldn’t go so far as to suggest a hand ported head is of any less quality than a CNC’d head, it’s just usually to get the same quality or better out of totally hand ported heads typically comes at a hefty price. That being said, craftsman is the key word, as some backyard porter (even if they have a shop) can wreck an otherwise good set of heads, so I would do my best to spend my money wisely. I had the fortunate opportunity to live down the road from what was one of the best cylinder head companies in the business, Chapman Racing Heads in Woods Cross, Utah and become friends with several of their employees and hang out with them while they performed some amazing work, but what was especially amazing to me was how they were able to repair what one would typically think was destroyed after an engine gave way, too bad they went way of the Dodo Bird as well.

 

$800.00 is not too much. gasket matching isnt as important as good bowl and short turn work.