and over the past couple weeks, I've been taking my time cleaning it up a bit before I install it on the car with my new AS&M runners.
The Edelbrock was a nice piece out of the box, but it was quite clear, there was a lot of room for improvement. Having said that, it wasn't until I saw a stock TPI base a few days later, that I realized just how big of an improvement the Edelbrock base was, over stock. Seeing a factory TPI base in person for the first time, I have a VERY hard time believing that even with a HEAVY amount of port-work done to it,it still would not come close to an "out-of-the-box" Edelbrock base.
Still, even though the Edelbrock was clearly superior in terms of flow, as I said, there was even more room for improvement so I figured I would take the opportunity to port the Edelbrock base before I installed it on the car. After finding out that getting it "professionally" ported would cost almost as much as the intake itself, I made the decision to do it on my own. For the record, I've never ported anything in my life and had absolutely no experience what so ever doing this sort of work but trying it out on my own would definitely be the most cost-efficient route to take and at the same time, I admit, I was kinda excited about doing the work myself. Not only would I gain experience and learn a skill that may come in handy later on, but being able to tell people I did all the port work yourself, is pretty darn cool
I picked up a dremel for $70 at a local hardware store and a bunch of sanding bits. Since this was my first time porting anything, I decided that it would be safer to start off with simple sanding bit's so as to not accidentally remove too much material and destroy a brand new intake. Although it takes much longer using sanding bit's as apposed to something like a carbide bit, the sanding bit's kept me out of trouble and allowed me to take my time.
Anyways, I've only done the intake ports on one side of the base, but I think they came out really good. Better than I expected actually, and I'd be willing to bet the work that's been is about as good as it's going to get. I really can't see how a place like, say, TPIS, could do any better. Best part is, I did it myself and saved a lot of money.
I was able to get about 2 & 3/4 inch's "into" each of the ports. Right out of the box, the Edelbrock has only "slight" porting a measly 1/4" in which you could see from the picture's below. Another thing I noticed is that there's a "lip" around each of the intake ports where there's clearly a huge amount of excess aluminum that serves no purpose but to obstruct air-flow. I basically ground them down which basically opened up each port. It's a very noticeable improvement just by looking at it in person.
Although not very scientific, my testing measure to see how my porting was coming along, was to place a golf ball inside one of the intake ports before, and then after cleaning it out. You can see from the picture's just how much of an improvement you can make with a simple dremel and some spare time. Out-of-the-box, the gold ball wouldn't even fit. It would just sit there with 3/4 of it still sticking out. After porting, the golf ball literally drops right into each port. Yup. Big difference.
Anyhoo, thought I'd post a few pic's of my progress. I still have the other 4 intake ports on the other side to port out and then start on the exhaust ports afterwards, but I'm enjoying the experience. Basically, I just wanted to let people know that you don't have to pay a couple hundred bucks to someone else to do port work for you. If you're willing to try it yourself, you can get really good results and save yourself some cash as well as learn something new.
Any comments, advice, or any kind of input in general, is more than welcome.
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Apparently they'll support close to 700hp N/A so that's basically the hold up. The sooner they release these heads, the sooner I can finish up the Formula. ...
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