Has anyone attempted to port and polish their I6 heads?

 

Yes, i did it on a 97, changed over to a 99 intake, smoothed the exhaust runners, gasket matched them, ported the intake and exhaust to gasket size on the head when I had it rebuilt...smoother running, better milleange...added a header, CAI and it runs nice a smooth...much better mileage...but migh be in combination with the other items...

 

i have mine gasket matched and full port of the bowels and intake and exhaust. HUGE difference. my buddy did it all for me. 30hrs into it. its big time ported for my stroker.

worth the time it takes as long as you know what your doin.

 

Standard abrasives has a great article for DIY porting. Think you can download it on pirate 4x4. Google it.

 

if you are doing what the above did, than it is fine. but if you have a stock engine and plan on doing no other major upgrades, than it can hurt performance more than it helps. We used to have customers come in and want their heads flowed, and there were more that were worse than stock than not.
It is very easy to do detrimental work to a cylinder head if you dont know what you are doing.
and again, unless your going to a stroker, or really changing all the top end components or cam, I dont think it would be worth it.
Bigger is not better, you need to maintain proper velocity through the ports, this is really what makes torque and efficiency.

 

That's what I like about the standard abrasives walk through. If you following the directions and work slow and careful you will come out with a quality job. It's always recommended to practice on an old head and its very time consuming to get it right.

 

Matching the intake and exhaust ports to the gasket, along with both manifolds works well, even on stock engines. Don't go nuts. Just open the mouth of the ports/runners to the gasket size and carefully blend in about an inch or so.

 

That walkthrough has you doing a bit of throat and bowl work too. I would definitely cc the chambers. That's so easy to do its a must.