Green93

Hi,
I am in the process of rebuilding my 1993 3VZE V6. When I sent the heads away for a rebuild I was $500-$600 to do a port and polish. I declined. Now that I have the heads back and all the carbon is cleaned off I can see how rough the ports really are. I'm still not going to pay that kind of money to port and polish these heads.

My question is would there be a huge difference if I just polished them up myself? I would have to of course disassemble the heads and buy a dremil to just make it smooth in there. I wouldn't try to take out extra material or reshape the ports.

Putting the heads back on is the next step for me so it's now or never. Any advice would be great.

Thanks,
Jason

iruny4wd

probably wouldn't even be noticeable. The intake side of the head is supposed to be a little rough anyway.

Green93

Thanks, I didn't really want to take the heads all apart again but I would have if it was going to make a difference. Anyone else have any input?

Jason

dijlop

everything will make a difference. a good diff, bad diff, slight diff, huge diff, that all depends on what it is ur doing. lol

Green93

Ok I'll be more specific. I want it to make a huge difference, for the better of course. I want it to give me better MPG and more power no matter how much I have my foot in it. I want a cooler and smoother running engine. Oh and I want it to be cheap and easy to do.

Seriously though anyone done this? Is it worth the trouble?

Jason

dcg9381

My opinion is that port work will help with supporting mods, such as a decent intake and a set of headers.

Polish work (exhaust side) - that's for drag motors that get torn down and cleaned out after successive runs.

You can do more damage than good in there, so be careful if you're a porting newbie... Removing material isn't always the right thing to do, depending on port design.

Victor

Porting won't help the 3.0 much. It's a very small displacement V6. People are happy to get an extra 20hp out of it. For what its worth I'd say spend your money on gearing if you have larger tires and leave the engine alone.

1eye

IF the heads where still apart and you had some spare time and the proper tools, go ahead and "polish" the runners. Its really hard to hurt the heads or performance from polishing alone, you might see a 1, maybe 2% HP increase if your lucky. PORTING on the other hand, can in some case give you a lot more hp gain, and thats IF you match up all the pieces[air filter,intake,cam,exhaust,etc].

To me, it all comes down to Spent vs Gain. Is the amount of time and $$ spent = to the HP or reliability gained? And that is something that every person has to decide for themself.

shoes138

if you wanna do that, u might as well get some of Weazy's Cam n EngineBuilders O/S valves.....That will make a Big difference.

Green93

I guess I should have mentioned what I've done so far. The engine is currently out of the truck and on the stand. I already have Weasy2k's cams in there. I also have Ted's 1mm over sized stainless valves as well as a .20 over master rebuild kit. Injectors have been flow tested and cleaned. Heads were rebuilt at the machine shop with all new parts and 3 angle valve grind. LCE ceramic street header kit is on its way as well. The bottom end is back together and my next step is to put on the heads.

With these mods will the polish make much of a difference or is it going to flow much better anyways? I'm just worried that I'm going to forget to do something that will make a big difference in the performance of the engine. This is the first time I have been this deep into an engine and I want to do it right.

So aside from the port and polish..am I forgetting anything that I should be doing while I'm in there?

Thanks
Jason

shoes138

o new head bolt the ones from ted! i think PnP will help alot especially with the O/S valves!

86tuning

For low-rpm horsepower, porting will definately NOT help. For high rpm horsepower, porting can help.

99 ways to screw it up...

It's one of those "if you have to ask, the answer is no" things. If it were my truck, I wouldn't do anything beyond a proper valve job. Now if it were a racecar, then there's plenty to be gained from combustion chamber shape and volume to port shape and velocity.

Deburring the sharp edges of the combustion chamber will help though. Usually after the deck is milled, there's a ton of sharp edges. Simply debur them so that the chamber doesn't build hot spots. This will decrease the likelyhood of pre-ignition, and allow you to run more ignition advance with less ping.

Have fun with your buildup!

SEAIRESCUE

Best bang for the buck is to match the ports to the gaskets and break all sharp edges in the combustion chamber, as previously mentioned. You can put the intake gasket onto the head and using spray paint identify the mismatches. A hand file will fix those places. However, the 3vz is a "spark knocker" and anything you can do to kill all those little sharp edges in and around the combustion chamber will be worth the effort. Porting is for high rpm activities and the 3vz is not a performance motor. The cams and slightly os valves will help your midrange.

My $0.02

Green93

Thanks for all the help guys. I'll take a look and just remove any of the sharp edged if they are there. I don't want to lose all my torque. It is still a truck, I just wanted it to breathe a bit better since it's a DD.

Jason

1eye

Well, how did it turn out? Where's the update.

Green93

I know it's been quite awhile but it still hasn't turned out. I decided not to port and polish the heads. The engine is back in the truck but I'm waiting on an exhaust crossover from LC Engineering before I can start it up. There are some pics in another thread. I think it's called "pictures of my rebuild".

I have to call LCE back on tuesday, hopefully they have good news for me.


Jason