33 Coupe Engine 51        7/24/03

This is a shot of the combustion chamber on the head. Notice the rough surface, somewhat like the exhaust port had. By making this area smooth, the air-fuel mixture moves better which makes horsepower and is more insurance from pre-ignition. The one thing I don't want to do is hit the valve seats in any way, shape or form so I'll be using some dummy valves to cover the seats. This way I can sand all I want and it won't harm those critical areas. 
 

 

 

And this is after polishing. This took two different types of sanding drums to get in all the small and large areas. Then I finished them with a "buff" (no...not in the buff) which is a scotch-brite looking type of flapper unit. The one thing you DON'T want to do is have your sanding drum or anything else touch or scratch the head surface. If you were to slip across the surface when sanding, this might be the start of ruining your heads. Why? Because when the fuel ignites, it's like a blow-torch going off each time, so if you had a small groove going from your combustion chamber to wherever, it would be the start of what's called "fire slotting". The only way to fix that would be welding and we don't want to go there. Again, the key here is to "take your time".
 

 

 

Now that the porting is done, it's time to check the valves and seats. Now these are brand new heads but I want to check to make sure that nothing is wrong here. You never know who put these together or if someone was ready to go home that day. I guess it's better to be safe than sorry. What I'm going to do is hand-lap the valve seats to check them. To check them, I'm covering the valve seats with red felt marker. This is an easy way to see what's going on when lapping. 
 

 

 

You want to paint up the valves too. This way when the red is removed, it will be easy to see what things look like.
 

 

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