Took a leap today; started bowl work with my DIY port and polish.



The cheap way to start!



Starting work with the "grinding stone"



Some of the flash casting that needed removal (already cleaned up water jacket/oil hole casting)



"rough" 60-grit work



120 grit (yes, different combustion chamber)



... getting there! Polish Wheel work, incidentally my favorite tool so far. I'll need to buy another one in order to finish exhaust runner work, started with too heavy of a hand and it ate itself quick.



Final Buffing wheel work.



Finished product!

All in all; 3 hours of work. I started off slow an nervous, cleaned up the water jacket/oil holes first to get a feel for the cutter against aluminum. Moving to the "flash" of the Chambers wasn't bad, but once I started to clean up the edges I was SCARED.

Moved slowly as I rounded edges in the bowl, had to keep telling myself not to "remove material" as much as "eliminate edges". All work, up to the final two steps, was done with "junk" valves in.

Soon I had moved to the abrasive rolls; most "pro" kits come with tons of 40 and 80-grit rolls and extension mandrels. All Dremel-brand rolls I have found are either 60 or 120; fine for exhaust and bowl work, but I have only seen 80-grit max used on intake runners, so I won't be using the 120 there unless a master chimes in saying I can.

As before, my pace was slow and my hand was soft. As I moved from bowl to bowl, I started getting more comfortable with putting a little pressure, turned up the dremel speed a little, and started figuring out the angles needed to get the best coverage. I burned through rolls quick on the early portion though, and as I moved to 120 I found myself moving quickly and wasting less.

To say the least; the polish step made the biggest impact (on my mood and the overall look). I got giddy like a schoolgirl when I started to see it all shine! At this point I wasn't worried about damaging valve seats, so I buzzed through very quick and moved to the cotton buffer.

Couple of notes:
*This was my first time ever doing this kind of work!
*I plan on having a machinist open the head up for oversized valves and giving it a multi-angle valve job, so I was less nervous than if I planned on re-using the valves.
*I feel it's not bad for my first time, and I could do MUCH better and quicker if I had a second-go, but I WILL NOT touch these bowls again unless the future machining scuffs it up or anything. This is because I feel that I have removed enough material already and don't want to compromise compression.

Criticism is welcome!

 

Did you take a before and after cc measurement? I always thought that port&polish was just the runners in the head, not the combustion chambers.

 

Didn't think to... I'll have to remember that next time!

I thought the same; gasket match, runner polish only. Part of the polish, though, is to prevent pre-ignition, eliminate hot spots, and prevent "dead" zones, all of which are applied to the chambers. I'll post up some tech links after work that taught me alot.

 

Thought about trying to polish my exhaust ports but on my brand new head i was a little scared to do it. Maybe on the next one, since i have 3 motors.
Nice work, i'll be following along. Thanks

 

I'll be working on the exhaust tonight, got to figure out how to get the stupid 20r injection tubes out before I do anything productive.

This was my only head, but the way I see it, as far as the exhaust and bowls go; any smoothness over stock will be an improvement.

Couple more notes:
*Eye protection!
*Probably need to purchase an actual kit once I hit the intake, I need extension mandrels at the very least, but the $20 I spent on what I have is well worth it over al.

 

So this is what that is, huh. Seems easy enough. Ive got a buffing kit that i use to polish alum. wheels, fuel tanks & stainless trim on big rigs, but i always sand to atleast 400grit before any buffing otherwise youll see the scratches. Ive managed a mirror shine on old stainless but aluminum is a different story.

Subd! Looking forward to see how you tackle the rest, you got a lot of work ahead of you!

 

i've never read about going to that high of grit before polish, I would imagine that minimizing imperfections would be optimal, but considering the amount of time invested vs. Gains, it's not worth it for the newbie like me.
If you use your pro equipment though; I'd be happy to see how shiny you could get it! Ha.

Decided to wait on exhaust work until morning, gotta try to sleep tonight. Updates tomorrow.

Edit:
Sorry, will continue port work today. Tried to prepare for the rest of the weeks' 115+ degree weather yesterday by fixing my A/C... that turned into a fiasco!

 

One exhaust port is partially done, no pictures yet. Had to move out into garage to use the die grinder and removed the air injection tube things. Bought a kit similar to the jegs port and polish, which I highly recommend, as it makes working on the deeper runners much easier.

Notes:
*South AZ weather is unbearable, even at night right now!
*The #4 exhaust runner has an oil passage that limits port rounding, I bet the 22r has the same problem. Just a head's up.
*At least on this head, the exhaust has somewhat "spiraling" lines on the entire straight portion of the runner, that coupled with the tube thingies and alot of carbon buildup are shaping up to make these well-designed round ports MUCH more complicated to smooth.

 

HOW did you go about removing the tubes from the exhaust ports? They are eating my high speed drill bits alive!