I am doing my head gasket and talking to machine shops about cleaning and redecking my heads. I am asking them about porting and polishing and a guy just told me it is a waste of time and I would see no benefits.

What do you guys think? Has anyone had a good experience porting and polishing?

 

2nd shop saying the porting and polishing is a waste of money, truck is too heavy to see gains, and that the sport cam is enough.

 

You won't see any big performance gains like they are saying, you will get more efficient heads though and see better gas mileage, less throttle needed at cruising speeds.

 

In my opinion, P&P is really only beneficial to higher reving / turbo motors -- Not lumbering V8's

 

I am going to skip the porting and polishing, when I have a workshop I may source a couple heads to port and polish myself, for the fun of it. And when the motor hits 100k swap them in with new Oil and water pumps.

I wish that I could have gone with a Turner longblock with the ported heads, but the shop screwed up and had already refurbished mine. In retrospect, I could have sold them and used the long block. I would not be doing head gaskets right now.

 

Port matching, where the intake runners are grinded to align perfect with the head, not a big power gain, and time consuming.
Porting the bowls, where the valves are, takes more knowledge and ability, and does improve power.
Both together can gain you 15-20 hp, and a noticeable improvement.
I'll bet the shops you talked to just don't want the hassle.
It's not a fancy race engine so they don't want to take the time.
Port matching the heads to the intake is not difficult, but time consuming.
Porting the bowls requires some know how, and isn't something to just jump in and try.

 

There is probably some of that, but also they probably don't want me complaining how my land boat still drives like a land boat.

 

I got a noticable increase and will/would do the same to any Disco I might own. Well, really any vehicle that I pull the heads on.

The work I've done lugs my truck around, loaded down, running 33s with stock gears quite well.

 

Did you do it yourself?

 

Not on this particular set of heads. It was a home brew job and i:'ve done them before, but someone else did this set for me. Frankly I wished I had done them myself.