Like Sumtin Nuu, the next project is a ported head, although I'll be running larger valves.
Just wanted to reiterate to avoid any confusion, I ported this stuff, but the head and manifold belong to SVO Capri. This stuff is going on his ride that he detailed a couple of posts up, not mine. All of my junk has either 302 or 351 based motors in it.
I was getting tired of porting the same small block stuff over and over and wanted to try porting something different for a change, thats all.
I finished the head up and got it back to him yest, unsure of when exactly he is going to get it bolted on, but think it will be in the next week or 2. So hopefully get some feedback from him on it sometime fairly soon.
Tell me about it, I much prefer porting aluminum to anything cast iron, but hopefully the power gains make it worthwhile.
I've heard that too, but then again, I've heard of iron exhaust manifolds, even non-turbo ones, eventually cracking with time. Ford's 300ci in-line six cylinder that they used in F150's and vans for years, comes to mind. When I was porting that one, truthfully, most of the heavy porting on it was in areas that had PLENTY of iron left, the thinnest areas of the manifold didnt really need any grinding anyways.
Jet Hot would probably be a nice addition, esp to help better keep the heat in the exhaust and less of it transferring to the manifold, but that's up to him to decide if its worthwhile.
Your wife probably saw Gainesville at its best when she was a teen.. it's still a nice looking town with the rolling hills and tree lined streets, but the traffic has gotten to the point of being ridiculous and the taxes are hellish, too. I'm sure she'd enjoy the visit, and if you time it right bringing her down, you can go to the Gator Nationals and see Gainesville's track at full throttle.
Glad you found the site and registered! Well, I made some more progress on the porting, got new pics below. The overall improvement by cleaning up the bowls and re-shaping the valve guide bosses is sort of hard to get a feel for by looking at the before/after pics in this thread, but, in person, it sure is a noticeable difference.
The shiny sliver that you see in the first pic, way back by the valve seat, is actually part of the combustion chamber, shiny now, because I worked it a little bit around the valves.
Intake bowl as viewed thru one of the edge intake ports:
Same thing as viewed thru one of the middle intake ports:
Update, finally got a chance to do a little rough-in porting under the intake valve and recontouring the valve guide boss, so I took a couple pics.
Like I said earlier, the short turn had a pretty bad ledge and the angles left from the factory machining for the valve seats weren't doing much for flow either. Just between working those two areas and the valve guide boss, this represents a pretty fair amount of metal being removed.
Luckily, the remainder of the port and the transitions, even stock, dont look all that bad so I dont expect to remove much metal from them beyond just a basic cleanup. It might take a little while to get the exhaust throats and the rest of the intakes roughed-in, so finish pics could be a ways off but I'll try to update in between other projects as time allows.
Intake bowl before:
Intake bowl after:
Intake bowl before (pic taken at angle to show short side restriction):
Alright, asked him yesterday if he had it on a dyno prior to the ported exhaust manifold swap, he had it on HP's dynojet in Orange Park, FL and it made 183rwhp and he couldnt remember the exact torque number or the RPMs they occured at without looking at the printout again, so I'll try to get that number too. Those numbers were on essentially stock motor by getting air/fuel ratio looking good at all RPM's, but was prior to him installing the FMIC/better IC piping/gutted lower intake/custom upper intake/forward facing 5.0L throttle body.
Not sure how much the FMIC, piping and intake would've added, in addition to the ported exhaust manifold he just bolted on a few days ago, as he hasnt had a chance to get it back on the dyno yet. But hopefully he'll get some numbers to reflect those changes before anything else is done in the interest of at least getting an idea of what power increases are coming from what.
As I mentioned before, he gave me an extra head to look at for porting. I've taken some pics of it with the valves removed, in order to see what kind of ugliness is in the valve pockets to hurt airflow and power. Turns out there's plenty. Room for improvement in the chambers too. I'll post up pics of what area I'm porting as I get the chance. If anyone has any suggestions on what porting improvements have worked for them, please post it up. Sorry the pic quality sucks, if anyone wants better pics of something specific, post it up and I'll try to get those taken too.
Ok, you guys asked for the punishment... so heres another couple pics. The engine is a 5.4 Triton SOHC, but given the ugliness of that hood, who cares?!?
Don't suppose you've had a chance to test it yet? It would be good to have some numbers for comparison, spool time, acceleration, etc.
I agree. Sorry I dont have any hard data to offer. The guy just called me a little while ago after swapping the ported manifold on and getting the turbo and everything back on and hooked up. After taking it out on the highway and flogging it for a while, he was adamant that it made a very, very noticeable seat of the pants difference.. both in terms of turbo responsiveness and of course, overall acceleration.
I did ask if he could even throw a wild guess at it, and he imagined it had to be at least be contributing another 20hp/tq and a wider powerband. So take that for what its worth. Having never ridden in the car myself, before or after, I cant offer any impressions of my own.
I forget now if he told me he had put the car on a dyno with just the bolt-ons he had before or not. I'll ask next time I talk to him.
His engine itself is stock right, but he has given me a spare cylinder head to look over and see what I can do, so I'll try to post up some good before/after pics of what I find to do with it.
This is the first one of these E6 manifolds I've gotten around to porting, so dont laugh.
A Local guy with a SVO/Capri hybrid with FMIC, intake/TB and some other mods already done had this extra E6 manifold layin around and he wanted me to port this one to see what kind of gains he might get from it.
Obviously most of the pics are where the turbo mounts up. First ones are of it rock stock, unported. Then some in-progress, and finally the finished product.
I'm not sure what kind of additional responsiveness he can expect from the turbo with this ported manifold or what power will be gained but I was able to straighten the worst turns and get pretty far up into the 2 adjacent runners and give the others a good basic cleanup, sooo.. we'll see once he gets it bolted on and reports back to me.
Okay, normally I'm pretty tolerant of other peoples ideas and tastes in what works well for mods... but, this guy gets my vote for "Most Hideous Looking Hood bolted onto a Thunderbird" award, hands down. I give him credit for stuffing a 5.4 under the low hood line of an MN12 but that hood has GOT to go, I dont care if it means the supercharger gets evicted from the engine bay. Enjoy
Because you're dyin to know why someone would put that ugly of a hood on...here's the reason for that strange, grotesque looking lump in the hood
I'd be interested in buying the front bumper cover, the grille, the rear interior side panels that have the lights in them, and the rear package shelf carpet if its in decent shape. Let me know a price on what I listed, and I'll see if my friend up there will stop by and pick the stuff up. Thanks.
Ok, sorry for the delay in getting back to this thread, been covered up with work and other BS. Thanks for all the replies and info, I got some quick pics of the sunroof itself, and the open close switch inside mounted between the visors.
Sorry about the pic quality, I'll try to look more closely at the sunroof glass for some identifying markings, although I didnt notice any when I first glanced at it.
I just picked up a 30th Anniv Ed and was wondering about a few things, so a couple questions...
1) Mine has a pwr moonroof so I was wondering if these were factory because I thought they used the flip-up moonroof thru 1986 and then went to the power ones on the 87-8's ??
2) I might just have a terrible memory, but I could have sworn I'd seen a 30th Anniv with a full console sometime before. Mine has the seat mounted consolette. Were these different options or did they all come with the console I have ?
Tell me about it, I much prefer porting aluminum to anything cast iron, but hopefully the power gains make it worthwhile.
