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6.0L Head Surgery

16K views 39 replies 9 participants last post by  patrickke 
#1 ·
After much thougt I decided to go ahead and make this post. Over the last 6 months or so I have got countless PM's on numerous forums regarding head porting. The number one concern from the people I have talked to is they don't feel a lot was done to the head for the price they paid for the work. I have seen 4 sets of heads from 4 "well known" shops (don't ask cause I'm not saying who the other shops were) that were sent to me to be straightned out. When the heads arrived at my shop they looked like a child ported them with an ice pick; at best. I've even called a couple of different shops who advertise "in house head porting" or "we do our own head porting" only to find out later in the conversation that they "use a guy in town for our porting". I realize there are many different theories on head porting and airflow but the same priciple applies to them all. In my mind what it all boils down to is the shops themselves don't know what a ported head should look like or they don't give a chit about their customers for sending them such shotty work.

I guess in the end it really botheres me that people are spending their hard earned money for something that's extremely sub par. So...with the long rant over if you spend your money on some port work it should look something like this or the finish should be similar at least.

If the guy who owns these heads wants to chime in please feel free....

This is not the finished product but you should get the idea.

For those of you who have never seen the inside of a 6.0L head...
The first pic is the long runner for the exhaust vavles on that cylinder
The second pic is the short runner which feeds into the long runner for the
exhaust valves on that cylinder.
The third pic is a down shot from the valve seat of the long runner.
The last pic is a down shot from the valve seat of the short runner.
 

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#2 ·
When the heads arrived at my shop they looked like a child ported them with an ice pick; at best. I've even called a couple of different shops who advertise "in house head porting" or "we do our own head porting" only to find out later in the conversation that they "use a guy in town for our porting".
I've lost count on how many I've had this same conversation with.....there ARE companies within the "Diesel Perf" market that specialize in ripping off honest hard working folks.....

I realize there are many different theories on head porting and airflow but the same principle applies to them all.
Strange how some think basic physics doesn't apply to them?

I guess in the end it really bothers me that people are spending their hard earned money for something that's extremely sub par. So...with the long rant over if you spend your money on some port work it should look something like this or the finish should be similar at least.

This is not the finished product but you should get the idea.
Nice work! it appears you had a significant amount of "repair work" to correct the hack job? Your customer might help others if they could provide before / after photos? About a year ago, I had a guy ask me if the JB weld covering the water jacket hole was normal...!?! I really felt bad informing him that his $6,000 custom ported heads were now junk.


Everyone should REALLY investigate anyone claiming to provide "magical" numbers from an OEM 6.0 casting. The heads twist and warp before any metal is removed.

Again, nice quality work!

Wekiwa
 
#3 ·
Thanks for the props Wekiwa.

The specific problem with these heads it that this particular shop/porter didn't do anything to the exhaust runners except in the bowl area...the area where there are still deep, deep gouge marks in the bowl area, and I didn't post up pics of the intake side because I've never seen porting this bad. It literally looks like the guy used a mandrel and didn't try to smooth out the tooling marks at all. On top of that there is a 1/8" differance in the tool marks in places.

These particular heads actually flowed LESS than stock heads, almost 37 cfm less in places and at a minimium of 9 cfm in the best place.
 
#4 ·
These particular heads actually flowed LESS than stock heads, almost 37 cfm less in places and at a minimium of 9 cfm in the best place.
:eek: Now that's impressive! :eek:

I don't think I could do that???? :doh:

Wekiwa
 
#7 ·
You are correct sir. I think there's gonna be one happy dude around your parts Rykan.

Can you see the differance between the two port jobs?

And can you tell this is a more "involved" port job then the previous work I preformed for your shop?
 
#6 ·
I'm glad to see you keeping up with this, despite all the naysayers. I quit following that other thread when all the ignorant "porting 6.0 heads don't work" and "those shops know what they're doing" BS kept coming out. Like I said before, this is EXACTLY what the 6.0 needs. Once you get a handle on the ports (maybe you already have) the rest of the combo is a bunch easier to work out when you know what the port wants. That part can't be stressed enough for those who don't understand the relationship between the intake manifold, intake port, cam profile, exhaust port, and exhaust manifold/header. It is a combination. No one part is the magic bullit. SBF, BBF, BBC and SBC combos didn't get figured out overnight either. It took decades and things are still improving for those motors to this day. I am excited to see this type of thought go into the 6.0.

I applaud you efforts and one of these days you will be recieving a set of heads from me to do your magic on.

It's easy to see why 6.0 head porting go the reputation it did given what you have shared.
 
#8 ·
LOL...Contrary to popular belief there are more than significant gains to be had in a properly ported 6.0L head; and you don't have to risk cracking the heads to get there. Thanks for the props sir... I initially wanted to revive the old thread, just to rub it in a little bit, but i decided to start a new one since a sponsor here paid good money for some redicilous head porting that flowed less than stock.
 
#9 ·
I have had some absolutely terrible "port work" come across my bench which people said they paid thousands for. Quite a few hacks out there who need to stick to bolting on turbos and injectors and leave the internal engine work to those who have the knowledge and experience. And actually some of the better port work that I have seen came from a couple guys who I spent time with explaining exactly what they had to do, and they went off and did a great job. Simply removing material from the port wall is not "porting", you need to know where and how to remove it.
 
#15 ·
You guys are picking on me for no reason. I got all the high $ equipment that Harbor Flake sells, i.e. a India/China Dumore copy and a good set of the multi colored stones they sell. Also a very good flow bench consisting of a Electrolux vacuum cleaner modded with a upstream "T" fitting connected via a 1/8" plastic tube to a bottle of water. Yep, I count the seconds it takes to suck the water out of the bottle to equalize each port.

As far as 'flow' theory, and or actual practice, I never did figure out that when air turns it needs to widen at that point, and that short turn radius's are better rounded than squared, etc. I did figure out that blue dykem on the ports, and a little shining with a flapper made out of a 1/4" bolt with the head cut off, and slotted to slip the plumbers sanding cloth in, make me a home town hero. Wanna know how I do valve jobs, and that I straight edge 6.L heads from end to end rather than side to side. Well don't ask, I gotta get back to the gold mine, Si?
 
#16 ·
You guys are picking on me for no reason. I got all the high $ equipment that Harbor Flake sells, i.e. a India/China Dumore copy and a good set of the multi colored stones they sell. Also a very good flow bench consisting of a Electrolux vacuum cleaner modded with a upstream "T" fitting connected via a 1/8" plastic tube to a bottle of water. Yep, I count the seconds it takes to suck the water out of the bottle to equalize each port.

As far as 'flow' theory, and or actual practice, I never did figure out that when air turns it needs to widen at that point, and that short turn radius's are better rounded than squared, etc. I did figure out that blue dykem on the ports, and a little shining with a flapper made out of a 1/4" bolt with the head cut off, and slotted to slip the plumbers sanding cloth in, make me a home town hero. Wanna know how I do valve jobs, and that I straight edge 6.L heads from end to end rather than side to side. Well don't ask, I gotta get back to the gold mine, Si?
And don't forget, the str needs to be as low as possible, no matter what. Hawg that floor out man!LOL

Any way you put it, hotrodracer is a funny guy. That post cracked me up. And I'm just a layman.
 
#19 ·
I hate to say this man but I'll have to post up pics of the other head...if UPS ever delivers it :( I've already cleaned the intake runners up on this one enough that pics just will not do justice to how bad this port job actually was.

For those of you that don't know Patrick has the absolute worse luck of anybody i have ever seen. UPS lost his other head that was supposed to come to me.
 
#24 ·
Yep, these babies belong to Patrick. Exhaust ports are average, gaskets don't match, and flow should be no problem LOL...

Sorry man, when Patrick gets these back he can give you all the measurements he wants to. Until then you'll just have to wonder. Not to be a ass but I'm sure you're aware that people take this stuff real serious...especially when there's horse power and $$ on the line.
 
#25 ·
Hollychit. If that is after the clean up job I would of hated to see them before. You've definatly saved them, and nice work BTW. Still see a few spots, but as you stated there's only so much you can take out. Gotta love it when someone thinks they're hot sh1t with a dremel, and a few cutters. Cudo's brother.
 
#26 ·
Matt,

I can't wait to see what this setup does, I am hoping it is a nasty setup. I have been through a lot of issues trying to get this truck done the right way, Travis sure did some things with the previous build that I don't agree with. But thank God for friends like you, Gary, Rykan, Jesse, Pius, Mike, Trevor (PMF) and all of the other people helping me build this truck the way it should have been built the first time.

-Patrick
 
#36 ·
Sorry Rykan,
There was way to much oppertunity there for me not to take advantage of it. I kind of got my self back because there was a real snake under my washing machine this morning. "CARMA"

As a matter of fact it wasn't that funny to me.
 
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