I have been looking to port my 16v head and started cleaning it up with the dremel, but having looked around there isn't really that much info on doing this with pictures. thought I would share some of my findings. I also will be trying to replicate the work done at home. I have a spare head so thought I might as well give it a go.. This is the standard head I have, I have done a little bit of work to the exhaust port blending in the valve seat cut-outs into the port runner, but am focusing on the inlet side and combustion chamber now. you can see the inlet has quite a wide splitter in the centre, I want to knife edge it more like the Southern California stage 3 & 4 heads, also I want to radius the injector cut out too. The SC heads are really sharply cut in comparison. SC head Stage 3 SC head Stage 4 I have also seen other ported vw heads on google, which look similar More of the same of the exhaust side looking at the cutaway pictures on Brian. G post, there looks to be enough material on the central split to warrant some cutting back, I think that atleast 2mm can safely be removed.. the pictures above look like this would be true too. What are your thoughts? Also I am looking to de-shroud the valves in the combustion chamber, there is approx. a 1mm step from the valve seat cut into the chamber, so was wanting to smooth this out too. again more references from SC heads. I have a spare head, which I was going to remove the valves from and do it with the spare set fitted, so there is no chance of damaging the valves, or valve seat. I don't really want to alter the CC of the cylinder so wont be looking to remove too much material, more of a grinding back of the small casting marks on the face and machining marks. SC Head Combustion chamber. I saw this post on a old ford pinto engine and the chap is doing the same thing using a small grinding stone on a dremmel tool.. doesn't look too hard work really. do you guys have any advice for me? I read Mr Hillclimbers post on it, and the 8v porting thread, both are really useful. one of the chaps put this picture up, but the post has not been updated for ages so thought would combine with it. I have read that de-shrouding the valves, can improve flow into the chamber, so its definitely worth trying it. I'm going to be having a go at it I think so will post up some more pictures as I do it.
There's a few pictures of ported heads in my oettinger engine thread Look forward to seeing your tinkerings Lancastrians do it best
be care full ,ther are a few different castings , you can,t make the wide inlet port look like the narrow inlet port .you will destroy the head other wise. identifie the pictures that match your head desighn firstly. them pics you got are good to follow. decide how much money you want to spend , based on a moderet spend 1 get all your guieds pressed out 2buy your self a assortment of flap wheels 60 t0 80 grit ,25 30 40 mm diameter 3flap wheel follow the shape of the ports smoothing every surface as best you can with a small drill or barrol router ,dremel is no good. 4port match your inlet and exhaust manifold best you can with the gasket that you are going to use. 5 you can buy a proper porting kit , 6 you will proberbly nic your valves seats so best get them re cut with your valves .3 angle. with new valve guides 7 combustion chamber is pretty good on the later heads , just clean up 8 skim head 9 fit new springs valve guied seals and reassemble good luck .
Maybe getting the guides out may be a diy job. Using one of those nice plumbers push button blowtorches, generally warm the head around the guide. By a tin or two of RS freezer spray. Get someone to turn you up a bit of round stock just smaller than the guide OD (ali/copper/brass) to a step so its a snug fit inside the 7mm guide. Spray the tool for 5 secs. Whack it with a lump hammer: guide come out. Look undamaged I have done this at home. Don't blame me if it turns to a ball of chalk tho Jon
Always good to put a disclaimer at the bottom Jon lol" it's not my fault if YOU balls it up lol Plumbers freeze spay from toolstation is probably cheaper than RS (ripoff sods ) priceslol
Thanks Sirguydo, I have jsut had a read of your thread, and brought the pictures of your Ottinger and Race heads over here too so show similarities. Ottinger and Race Head from Mike: Good info TrackCab, I will check the casting numbers tonight and have a look not sure if mine is a wide/narrow port one atm. In regards to the guides, can you not just grind them down as on the Ottenger head which Mike has? it seems hit or miss, some people want to run a full guide, others say it is possible to run a cut down one. How much does it cost to have a new set of guides fitted? does anybody know? I have a Die Grinder, Flap Wheels and barrel sand paper bits, I was only really using the dremel for the lighter work, and where it needs to be very accurate as I have a pen type flexi attachment for it.. I will definately be port matching the inlet / exhaust manifolds too once the time comes good info so far tho guys keep it coming!
This is mine - it werent cheap This includes; strip down, pressure testing, acid dip & cleaning, 16 new valve guides, valve seat re-profiling (commonly referred to as 3 angle seats), valves refaced & lapped, cam followers cleaned & buffed, re-assembly and 5 hours of porting and polishing
Man in shed ??? ( club discount been doing performance vags forever - TSR , gti engineering , radical etcetera )
Chaps welcome to the club and I'm liking you computer skills already lol I'm iPad and hammer sort of guy lol
Still looks good but shame you didn't get it done by the best Did you get a price off JMR Jason is quite knowledgable as well Doesn't matter realy just like to compare what's being done
Kempster - are you able to take anymore close up pics for this thread? would be really useful to see what they have altered. You know when all you can think about is getting your mits dirty, i just dont want to be overly rash and go bull in china shop styley without good basis and info... I so wanna get in there with the tools tho! dreaming of aluminuim shards flying around and perfectly polished ports.... Do we have any pictures of damaged heads? or where porting has gone too far?
I was in the shed tonight and thought spent a couple of hours with the die grinder and dremel. I have managed to semi port the inlet side, its not quite finished yet but definitely going in the right direction. Wasn't that hard to do really, you just have to take your time with the die grinder as it can take some serious chucks out if it grabs the ally. The tool - 15 silverline special with a carbide burr. I know its better, and would have been easier to use a oval shaped one, I think that I will buy one for this next stage as it would be easier to round off the corners with it. and also you can get a lot deeper with it, up round the valve guide. Anyway, I started to blend the injector machining part out first, from the pictures above, this seems to have been done on most of the heads above. Then on to knife edging the central spine. I have not taken too much metal out, but there is prob 1/2 a tea-spoons worth from each port if I had gathered it up. You could prob take more out but I thought it would be best to go easy for now. Now I used the dremel with a barrel roller on it. It cleaned all of the die grinder marks off very well actually, wel worth it, plus as its on a deep reach pen extension you can really get in to the port with it. I finished the rest of the inlet ports, it prob took me about 2 hours to do them to this stage. I have removed a bit of metal from up near the guide, the sort of ramp to it. didn't want to go too far as I don't want to damage the guide. not sure if I will remove them and properly port it yet, I need to ring the machine shop to see how much they would want to replace them. I am quite happy with the work, should get a few gains anyway, and I still have the exhaust and chamber to look at.
Looking good My heads are all the earlier 021 castings yours is the later 051 casting it flows slightly better than the 021 ones keep us posted If you want more pictures of my heads let me know
Thanks fella, I wouldn't mind coming to have a look at you heads, your only down the road from me. but yeah, some more pictures would be good too. Inside the intake port, has the valve guide support been ground down completely? are you running a full guide too? what has been done around the top of the port, near the valve seat? are your valves in at the moment? Reading the Head Info Thread in the stickys section, I think mine is an ABF head, or atleast that's what I think I am reading..
More pictures I have found from ported 16v heads, i comparing these to the work done last night a lot more material can be removed from the central spine and around the valve guide.. i am going to buy a oval die grinder tool and carry on with it.
On a lot of these ported heads, the combustion chamber wall has been opened out, as standard there is a flat section, between the cylinders. this looks like its been opened out quite alot. you can see on my original photo where the head gasket is. this will change the CC of the combustion chamber, lowering the CR, but thinking if i skim the head it should compensate? again, thoughts welcome.
If you get a piece of steel rod the same size as the die grinders chuck / collets you can cut a slot in the end, pass strips of emery cloth through the slot and wrap it around the rod and use it instead of the dremel bobbins for cheaper / faster tidying of the ports. 2 or 3 different lengths of rod help when smoothing the ports after removing material with the burr
