Alpineandy wrote:David Gentleman wrote:Porting and polishing is far cheaper than having larger valves fitted, but is obviously only beneficial if you are running decent inlet manifolds and throttle body diameters....
Is there any point fitting throttle bodies or big carbs etc unless the ports have been opened? It may give a tiny benefit but wouldn't be a 'value for money' purchase without.
Yep, for instance, the inlet valves on the V6 Z7X are 46mm, and you can get 40-50mm bodies, but you won't get your ports near 46mm, maybe 42mm max, but you still get a gain fitting the large bodies, but probably not much of a gain above 44mm
End of the day, you just look at the restrictions in the intake system - if the inlet manifold runners are smaller diameter than the ports, then increasing them will make a gain..
I was showing Stephen Dell the other day, the plastic intake pipe that diverts hot air into the air filter chamber on a GTA atmo, via a flap, but the overall diameter of the intake pipe that the engine breathes through is smaller in area than the total area of the carb venturi's, so theres a loss there to start with at high rpm, but the main thing was the flap never fully moved itself out of the air flow, so it was restricted once more. I have always binned this on all my GTA's and it makes a difference, and we did it to Steves on a long journey through France which we have done many times and guaranteed, it was more economical on fuel by quite a margin and had better top end pull, proving even a simple restriction removed on an standard engine makes a difference.
