Porting E7 heards..

[TexasNomad]

Hiya guys, well I picked up my heads to day they are in great shape valves look clean chambers look good. I want to port them but really don't know how far I can go, they have these really nasty EGR bumps I mean damn why not just plug the exhaust ports why don'tcha , how far can I grind those off with out hitting the water jackets? beside the egr bumps what else would be a good thing to grind/shine up? thanks for any help you can give me guys

 

[conanski]

Actually.. the thermactor hump is small compared to what the E6 heads have.

There's lots of info on the web about porting these heads, basically you want to remove the valve and grind the thermactor hump completely flush with the roof, blend the pocket area behind the valve into the port walls and roof, and upen up the port smoothly to the gasket. You can also contour the valve guide to make it more aerodynamic. On the exhaust side the walls and roof are most important as this is where the flow pressure is, on the intake side the walls and floor are more important. Don't get too carried away on the intake side, the ports are already bigger than most stock intake manifolds, you'll want to open up the intake to match the heads. Here are some links..

http://www.diyporting.com/
http://www.tmossporting.com/

 

[TexasNomad]

Awesome thank you Conanski!
Once I grind down the thermactor's will it render the egr ports none functional? or will I have to take them some one and have the port welded closed so far every thing I've read doesn't say any thing about this..

 

[conanski]

The EGR has nothing to do with these thermactor holes, you'll notice a gaping hole at the back of one of the center exhaust ports.. that's for the EGR.

No need to plug these thermactor holes after grinding them down flush.. unless you just want to, they won't affect exhaust flow much if you don't.

 

[Mr. Stroker]

Will a little grinding mess with a SD system? I plan on just grinding a little out of the exhaust side, and porting my headers a bit.

 

[conanski]

Will a little grinding mess with a SD system? I plan on just grinding a little out of the exhaust side, and porting my headers a bit.

No not at all. Take the thermactor hump down flush with the roof of the port, and then open up the whole port smoothly to the gasket dimensions.. you can't make the exhaust port too big for a 5.8 motor. I also suggest you port match the lower intake runers to the head intake port dimensions.. which may not be the full size of the gasket. On the 5.0 I just put together the lower intake ports were several milimeters smallers than the head ports in both dimensions. You'll want to lay the intake on the motor with gaskets(a couple studs help alignment here) to check port alignment too. Again on my 5.0 the ports were misaligned towards the back, so I did most of my grinding on the front side.

 

[TexasNomad]

I was wondering what do you guys think on valve size?
1.76 intakes
1.45s exhausts I've heard people going to a 1.90 on the intake and 1.60 on the Exhaust would this be a good thing to do or stay with the stock size?

 

[conanski]

Valves are part of the total flow package, the problem is they are not cheap once you factor in the machine work needed to fit them. To really benefit from larger valves the ports must be significantly larger, and you can only grind away so much metal before hitting water, so these heads are not worth sinking that kind of money into IMO. If you want larger valves pickup a set of GT40 heads, these have ports that are about the same volume stock that the E7 heads can be ported to, so there is a lot more potential and they can be found for well under $500 a pair. It's all too easy to spend lots of money rebuilding heads, and after all that they still won't touch what you can buy brand new off the shelf. The Dart heads I picked up for my 5.8 have exhaust ports that flow as well as the intake ports on the E7 heads, and the intakes flow close to double that. Total cost was a little over $1300 for the pair, completely assembled with 2.02/1.60 valves, studs and guideplates.

 

[TexasNomad]

Cool thanks conansk, dart heads look really nice Maybe i'll go with some of those.

 

[TexasNomad]

I fallowed a link off the dart site and found this
http://www.gofastnews.com/board/technical-articles/1130-porting-school-7-power-port-volumes.html
I all ways thought that bigger ports = more power well its seems I was wrong, and a lot of people who told me were wrong to. the small stock 180CC ports were the best at low RPM power but died out above 4000 RPM so maybe I should just go with bigger valves and not worry about porting any thing.

 

[conanski]

I fallowed a link off the dart site and found this
http://www.gofastnews.com/board/technical-articles/1130-porting-school-7-power-port-volumes.html
I all ways thought that bigger ports = more power well its seems I was wrong, and a lot of people who told me were wrong to.

You are building a 302 right, so everything should be scaled down for that motor, it doesn't move as much air as a bigger motor. 180cc heads are probably a bit big for your application.. but it depends what that is. On a 302 some of these bigger heads will get you into the 400hp range, but that happens at 6000+rpm and performance below 3000rpm isn't great. If this is to be a street motor with a manual tranny or auto with a stock torque converter, the stock heads with some porting and an upgraded cam will produce the widest powerband with decent power right from idle.

 

[Old Ford Blue]

I'm running the E7 heads on my pieced together 302. I have been extremely impressed with the little beast. Its basically put together with stock parts, I mean its runnin manifolds, a D3 2bbl intake, with a 2100 carb, but it will scream, smoke the tires, and pass anything(well almost) even gass stations

When I went through the top end I was kinda worried that I waould suffer some flow issues becaue there are two different intake gaskets. One for pre 76(I think, I don't remember) and one for post. Anyhow I'm very happy and when the $$$ comes its gettin a 4bbl.

Gabe

 

[393clevor]

here is a set of E7 heads I ported with the 1.9 1.6 valves, the exhaust seats were just cut larger without installing hardened seats. The machinist said after the cutting he was still into the factory hardened seat. 4 years later and the valves are still where they belong. No need to spend the money on hardened exhaust seats the factory seats are deep enough for the 1.6 valve. Also he used a cutter that puts a 70* angle deep into the bowls, so all you have to do is blend the rest of the port into the bowls. As far as cost it's no more money than a regular valve job.
These heads with a small 270S cam rpm intake 650DP long tube headers made 234RWHP

 

[70blue]

I had no idea the e6s had the larger bumps I just knew it was common knowledge they do not flow as well as E7s. Once you port them is there alot of difference between the E6 and E7s?

 

[393clevor]

here is another set of E7s I did with 351W size valves. These had exhaust seat installed because they weren't mine... look at the short turn radius on the intake port here you can see a huge improvement... wish I had a flow bench...

I leave the port floors alone no need in making the turn to the valve any worse than it already is, just widen it and smooth it out... look at where I scribed the outline of the exhaust gasket I left the floor high.

 

[393clevor]

I had no idea the e6s had the larger bumps I just knew it was common knowledge they do not flow as well as E7s. Once you port them is there alot of difference between the E6 and E7s?

some people like the e6 heads, I don't.

it's the chamber that kills the flow the valves are heavily shrouded. I have some pics somewhere I'll post them...

 

[393clevor]

E6 heads, found these pics on the internet. I started to port a set but scraped them after hours of chamber work.
also the valve are shorter then any sbf head.

some links
http://images.google.com/imgres?img...:official&sa=G&um=1&ei=jdwnSuSjMMSVlAella3TBw

no mention of the E6
http://users.erols.com/srweiss/tablehdc.htm#Ford

 

[TexasNomad]

Wow that's awesome! thank you for posting this!
In comparison how well do these ported E7's flow compared to a stock set of gt40 heads?
I still have the heads sitting beside my tool box.
Also what did you use to do the porting?

 

[O'Rattlecan]

That's some intricate stuff! Thanks for sharing.

Ryan

 

[conanski]

I spent many hours working a set of E6's... reworked the chambers to unshrowd the intake valves and hogged out the exhaust ports as much as I dared. On my 5.8 they produced outstanding TQ but it fell on it's face at 4500rpm.. but then it would do the same with any head smaller than an AFR185. In the end I don't think my ported E6's worked any better than relatively untouched E7's would, so it a good thing it didn't cost me anything. Here's a shot of the E6 chambers next to some E5 truck heads which are all but identical to the E7's. Valves in both heads are at 1/2" lift by the way. And a shot of my porting work.