Porting problems :(

[Jeff]

Well, the reason the Daytona is not going together is I am waiting on a 'friend' to do my porting. On the intake, exhaust, and head. He went to college for auto mechanics and took high performance classes. Needless to say he is sorta a jerk and has been puting me off for some time (I have completed my end of our bargain, to polish a set of wheels and do some labor on his property) Anyway, he did the exhaust manifold some time ago but never finished it, it was not polished. I am trying to decide if I am going to let him do the rest (when he finally gets to it! :evil: ) or should I pay someone else to do it. If so, who? Here is the exhaust manifold in its unpolished state, all I want is a gasket match.







This is port one, I think the wall is too thin even though it is cast iron. He maintains it will be fine. Thoughts?

[HAULN-SS]

Gasket matching you can do yuorself. Get everything lined up and etch the outline - get a set of rolls and go to town. Its hard to say if that's too thin - I'd say if it was somewhere close to an 1/8th it'd be enough lap there to catch everything good. As for polishing - on exhaust manifolds, it's hard to fuck up. If it's smooth, you're golden.

[PDenbigh]

Being a turbo car I'd be really careful about wall thickness on the manifold. I hit some really high EGT's on the XR. I had a lot of problems cracking my header until I finally replaced the weak link with a 1/8" sidewall stainless tube.

I'd say put a little more work into the manifold to smooth it out and get your engine built. Worst case, it cracks and it gives oyu the opportunity to get it done right.

As for the rest of the porting, I know Dale Engineering does good work but not sure on a price. Just call around and see who meets your quality/price ratio. And for heavens sake get that engine finished ;-).

[Andy]

Gasket matching is cake and you could do that yourself. Hell, there's not guarantee that that your acquaintance can properly port your head because every car is different so he'd be taking a stab in the dark when he came to port design for your TD/Shelby thingamajigger. Honestly, if he's shown that little responsibility, I would pass on that "work." Even if he does it, he'll probably half ass it and you won't be happy considering all the time/money you've put into this car.

[Kaan]

why polishi it? its going to have black crap building up in it anyway... even if its "polished"... it will just take a little longer.

[Andy]

why polishi it? its going to have black crap building up in it anyway... even if its "polished"... it will just take a little longer.

Polishing the inside of the manifold helps minimize carbon buildup.

[Kaan]

well its going to build up anyway... and i doubt you'd be able to tell it was even polished 10k miles from now.

[Jeff]

did a little research. Stock head is good to 300whp anyways. I'm going to BUY a predone exhaust manifold and do the intake myself. Should be simple to do the intake side.

[HAULN-SS]

You might also look into finding someone with a flow bench. Or build one for MM to use =)

That way you can grind a while, test a while, grind awhile, test a while - find out what gives the best gains