This is my second home-made ported head, still learning as I go. The first runs great: the engine has incredible mid-range and the head porting + Ford Performance cams certainly helped.
For this second version I went a little further: more porting, in particular on the exhaust side, a bit of work on the combustion chambers, and new performance valves (Ferrea) as well as my own valve seat cutting sauce, because why not?
I decided to sink the valves a little bit to move the seat outwards nearer to the edge of the valves, then I was able I cut a short 60° angle down the throat then a 75° angle, with a short 30° angle outwards plus a very small touch of 15° but only on the intake.
On the exhaust side, the seats (the 45° part in contact with the valves) were moved outwards 0.4mm so the 60° cut is 0.8mm larger in diameter than before, and the 75° cut extends about 4mm down the throat, all while maintaining decent 2mm-wide seats.
Ford says 1.85-2.25mm on the exhaust, so well within specs, and it covers 100% is the seat that is cut on the valves themselves, so the valve cooling should still be optimal.
The valves sank about 0.2-0.3mm due to the grinding, so I had to redo the lash from scratch and order 16 new tappets to restore the mandatory minimum of 0.3mm valve lash on the exhaust side and 0.19mm on the intake. On 6 out of 8 exhaust valves I ended up using the thinnest (3.000mm) tappets available from Ford, and the valve lashes corrections needed across all 8 exhaust valves ended up within 0.1mm, not bad for a hand cut valve job.
I did a similar operation on the intake side, the seats moved out about the same amount but it was much easier as the seats are narrower. In both cases I set the outer diameter of the seats to match the outer edge of the valves, so 30mm and 32.5mm. Then I could thin the seats back to spec from the inside using the 60° cutter, enlarging the holes to about +5% surface area on the intake and +4% on the exhaust side.
Grinding a cylinder head is particularly time consuming, I’d say about 60 hours in total between the grinding, seat cutting, valve lapping, and valve lash, plus a few days at the machine shop for cleaning and surfacing, waiting for the new valve tappets from Ford, and finally assembling the valve train carefully using my favorite assembly oil: RedLine “new formula,” which it liquid-ish but does not run.
I used Velcro “dots” on the valves and the lapping stick, to avoid the aggravation of the succion cups, that… suck.
I don’t have before/after flow figures. To be honest I don’t believe in flow figures, that just one data point but reality is more complicated.
Most flow charts show most of the gains realized through porting at lifts that no camshaft will ever reach anyway, so the peak CFM is entirely meaningless in most cases.
The Ford Performance camshafts lifts 9mm on the intake side (0.354”) and 7.8mm on the exhaust side (0.307”) - Any wonderful gains starting at 0.500” or above are not very useful, and any loss below 0.350” will result in less power than the stock head at all RPMs.
The Piper Stage 3 that everyone sells lifts 10.85mm (0.427”) on the intake and 9.7mm (0.382”) on the exhaust so, even with these, flow figures showing gains starting at 0.400” and up are not relevant: we need a head that shows significant gains at 0.200”
These are still pretty nice numbers by the way, but the cams looks pointy and symmetric while the Ford Performance camshafts are more rounded and asymmetric. I think they open faster and stay in their high lift portion longer. The total flow may not be so bad even if the duration and lift are more modest, and the initial acceleration of the air column due to the fast lift may help draw more air than some other profiles. This is something that cannot be measured on a flow bench.
I hope it did not overdo anything and ruined the low and mid ranges with this second attempt. My v1 head is terrific in those areas.
I bought the tungsten seat cutters from Neway, a company from Michigan. You will need both a 5.5mm and a 5.52mm pilot due to variation in valve guide bores. The cutters are great but require a little practice. You cannot avoid spreading seat debris and I recommend taping all orifices, also you need a brush to clean the valve guide before inserting the pilot. Any debris and you risk damaging the guide, and your pilot will not be straight. I messed up two seats that I had to redo because, when lapping, the ground area wasn’t going 360° - I think I cut those seats slightly sideways due to the pilot not being completely straight. I was able to correct it by re-grinding just a bit, making sure the valve guide bore was clean, but this is why my intake 2 and 4 have thinner tappets than the others. I used assembly oil as lube because that’s what was on the table, and some debris got stuck in the blades and the surface finish wasn’t great at first. I did a final pass after cleaning the blades to get a smooth finish (that looked very good) and lapping went well. Next time I’ll use water-soluble cutting oil and somehow pour it while cutting to remove the debris.
I also got a “bare bones” kit from CC Specialty Tool from Tennessee, and everything else (carbide burrs, flap wheels, sanding paper cones etc) from Amazon, including a Moroso engine brush kit which proved very useful. The CC Specialty Tool has a pedal that control the speed of the motor. I did not know how useful that would be until I tried it.
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For this second version I went a little further: more porting, in particular on the exhaust side, a bit of work on the combustion chambers, and new performance valves (Ferrea) as well as my own valve seat cutting sauce, because why not?
I decided to sink the valves a little bit to move the seat outwards nearer to the edge of the valves, then I was able I cut a short 60° angle down the throat then a 75° angle, with a short 30° angle outwards plus a very small touch of 15° but only on the intake.
On the exhaust side, the seats (the 45° part in contact with the valves) were moved outwards 0.4mm so the 60° cut is 0.8mm larger in diameter than before, and the 75° cut extends about 4mm down the throat, all while maintaining decent 2mm-wide seats.
Ford says 1.85-2.25mm on the exhaust, so well within specs, and it covers 100% is the seat that is cut on the valves themselves, so the valve cooling should still be optimal.
The valves sank about 0.2-0.3mm due to the grinding, so I had to redo the lash from scratch and order 16 new tappets to restore the mandatory minimum of 0.3mm valve lash on the exhaust side and 0.19mm on the intake. On 6 out of 8 exhaust valves I ended up using the thinnest (3.000mm) tappets available from Ford, and the valve lashes corrections needed across all 8 exhaust valves ended up within 0.1mm, not bad for a hand cut valve job.
I did a similar operation on the intake side, the seats moved out about the same amount but it was much easier as the seats are narrower. In both cases I set the outer diameter of the seats to match the outer edge of the valves, so 30mm and 32.5mm. Then I could thin the seats back to spec from the inside using the 60° cutter, enlarging the holes to about +5% surface area on the intake and +4% on the exhaust side.
Grinding a cylinder head is particularly time consuming, I’d say about 60 hours in total between the grinding, seat cutting, valve lapping, and valve lash, plus a few days at the machine shop for cleaning and surfacing, waiting for the new valve tappets from Ford, and finally assembling the valve train carefully using my favorite assembly oil: RedLine “new formula,” which it liquid-ish but does not run.
I used Velcro “dots” on the valves and the lapping stick, to avoid the aggravation of the succion cups, that… suck.
I don’t have before/after flow figures. To be honest I don’t believe in flow figures, that just one data point but reality is more complicated.
Most flow charts show most of the gains realized through porting at lifts that no camshaft will ever reach anyway, so the peak CFM is entirely meaningless in most cases.
The Ford Performance camshafts lifts 9mm on the intake side (0.354”) and 7.8mm on the exhaust side (0.307”) - Any wonderful gains starting at 0.500” or above are not very useful, and any loss below 0.350” will result in less power than the stock head at all RPMs.
The Piper Stage 3 that everyone sells lifts 10.85mm (0.427”) on the intake and 9.7mm (0.382”) on the exhaust so, even with these, flow figures showing gains starting at 0.400” and up are not relevant: we need a head that shows significant gains at 0.200”
These are still pretty nice numbers by the way, but the cams looks pointy and symmetric while the Ford Performance camshafts are more rounded and asymmetric. I think they open faster and stay in their high lift portion longer. The total flow may not be so bad even if the duration and lift are more modest, and the initial acceleration of the air column due to the fast lift may help draw more air than some other profiles. This is something that cannot be measured on a flow bench.
I hope it did not overdo anything and ruined the low and mid ranges with this second attempt. My v1 head is terrific in those areas.
I bought the tungsten seat cutters from Neway, a company from Michigan. You will need both a 5.5mm and a 5.52mm pilot due to variation in valve guide bores. The cutters are great but require a little practice. You cannot avoid spreading seat debris and I recommend taping all orifices, also you need a brush to clean the valve guide before inserting the pilot. Any debris and you risk damaging the guide, and your pilot will not be straight. I messed up two seats that I had to redo because, when lapping, the ground area wasn’t going 360° - I think I cut those seats slightly sideways due to the pilot not being completely straight. I was able to correct it by re-grinding just a bit, making sure the valve guide bore was clean, but this is why my intake 2 and 4 have thinner tappets than the others. I used assembly oil as lube because that’s what was on the table, and some debris got stuck in the blades and the surface finish wasn’t great at first. I did a final pass after cleaning the blades to get a smooth finish (that looked very good) and lapping went well. Next time I’ll use water-soluble cutting oil and somehow pour it while cutting to remove the debris.
I also got a “bare bones” kit from CC Specialty Tool from Tennessee, and everything else (carbide burrs, flap wheels, sanding paper cones etc) from Amazon, including a Moroso engine brush kit which proved very useful. The CC Specialty Tool has a pedal that control the speed of the motor. I did not know how useful that would be until I tried it.
