82-T/A

Ok guys, if you all remember, before ThirdGen went down, my car blew a head gasket.. or so I THOUGHT. It ended up being a bad waterpump that the shop misdiagnosed. So I tore the motor apart. In the meantime, I was going to rebuild the top end doing a lot of porting work. Before third gen went down, I didn't have it all together yet.

Well, the results are in, and I've gotten my car back together.

Here is a list of what I did.


1) Valve Job (of course)

2) Did some HEAVY porting on the middle intake. This is the WORST part of the whole setup, the middle intake matches up with the lower intake about as good as a gas cap fits on a coke bottle. There are 3/8ths of a restriction on EITHER side. THey don't match up worth a DAMN! All in all, i calculated that there is almost a whole inch of restriction from the poor design. I also polished the ENTIRE inside of those runners.
People say NOT to polish this becuase the fuel needs the turbulance for better fuel atomization, BULL CRAP. The fuel doesn't even enter the picture until halfway through the lower intake. So porting the middle and upper intake plenum and the upper portion of the lower intake is fair game.

3) I port matched the intake plenum with the middle intake and polished what I could from the openings of the intake plenum.

4) I port matched the lower intake to the heads. I did some slight porting on the lower intake, basically i matched it up with the middle intake. I didn't remove the rough edges in the lower intake because it helps fuel atomization. What I did do was round off any sharp or jagged edges anywhere in the lower intake.

5) I did some light porting to the heads, I did VERY little work to the combustion chamber.. almost nothing, I just rounded down the straight edge by the valves (thats the 3.5 inch straight 90 degree edge that sides on the far side of the combustion chamber. I'm not talking about the ridge around the cyl wall. I also enlarged the exhaust port so that it would match my exhaust manifolds. You do NOT want to touch the floor of the exhaust. you want all your porting to be on the side and top of the exhuast port. I also smoothed the exhaust port by the way. Be somewhat careful of course, cause you don't want to do too much porting on the vein, thats where the two halves of the head were welded together. I also did some grounding and port matching on the intake ports, but I didn't polish anything. Do NOT remove that large hump in the intake ports.


All in all, when my car was stock, it was running mid 15s. This is a V6 automatic Pontiac Fiero, but it has the EXACT same motor as you guys do in your V6 F-bodies.

I got the car running two weekends ago and took her for a run. I was totally not expecting the performance I got. I send myself flying down the road SIDEWAYS doing 50 miles an hour from almost a dead stop. Scared the hell out of me. My friend with a Gtec clocked me at a 14.79 0-60. Like I said, before I was doing mid/low 15s.

It's amazing what this little porting job did. I focused MOST of my efforts on making sure the intake pieces matched up.

I'll post pictures soon.

Todd

RenoLB8

Umm, I assume it was a typo, cause you do realize that a 14.7 0-60 time would SUCK. A 14.7 1/4 mile time, now THAT would be ipressive.

-Reno

82-T/A

Heh, yes it was a typo, I meant quarter mile.

It's an automatic too! Imagine if I had the 5-speed Getrag!

Todd

TomP

Congrats on the work, Todd! Looks like I'll be doing headwork next summer, I ran out of time. [sigh] Oh well, at least it leaves me with something to do next year!

Where'd you get the grinding stones from? I've been thinking of purchasing the head porting kit from the Eastwood Company, it's a bit cheaper then the one from Standard Abrasives. Around here they want $2/stone, which isn't that bad, but 15 stones later and I could have a kit with 40 in there!

-Tom P (Hot rodded 1986 Firebird 2.8l) from http://www.f-body.net/mailbag/3rd/3rd_mailbag.html message boards

82-T/A

Wow, 15 stones? I didn't use that many.

Actually what I did get was a small assortment of different stones. I got a few sanding wheels. I got two of those from Home Depot for $1.99 a pop. The next item i bought were two differently shaped grinding stones. One was totally cylindrical, and the other was bullet shaped (got two of those).
I actually ended up not even really using the cylendrical one. I used it very little and would have preferred just getting one of the others.

The OTHER stone I got was the most helpful, I am not sure what it was made of, but I paid $4.99 for it from a place called International Tool. I specifically bought a new power drill for $59.95 from them too. a DeWalt. It was one of their cheaper ones, but in case it seized up, I didn't want my nice power drill to seize.

Anyway, the grinding stone I got from them was made of what LOOKED like Pumice. Im not sure exactly what it was, but it was a long needle shaped grinding stone.

I also brought a big chunk of granite inside to use to clean the stones.

It took me about 2 hours to do the grinding.

IN our V6s, we use an EGR tube that recirculates the exhaust gasses through the entire intake. This of course creates some soot and whatnot occasionally. The one good thing about this, is that any exposed area of metal (restrictions included) are coated in a black varnish that covers the metal. When I removed the individual pieces of the intake, I could see exactly what was being hit by the exhaust gasses and where. This told me EXACTLY what I needed to ground down, and exactly how far I needed to grind it. I matched everything up that way. On teh exhaust port though, since everything was pretty much dirty, I used rulers to match up the sizing of the ports properly.

I wish I knew what kind of stone that was, but It helped quite a bit better than the others. I used the regular old die grinding stone bits to really grind down the metal, and then I used the special bit to smooth it out and make minute grinding changes.


I DEFINATELY felt the difference. I plan to rebuild the whole motor in my other Fiero, the 84 SE 2m4 which has that cruddy 2.5 Liter Iron Duke that the S/E Firebirds came with. it's a bad motor, but in a light car like the Fiero it's not TOO bad. To get a little more power I'm really going to do some porting work.

Todd

CamX55

Hey 82,

Did you mange to take before/after pictures of your heads when porting? Would like to use these on a web site I'm making for the V6/60deg

82-T/A

I've got AFTER pics, but they're on a disposable camera that I need to develop and scan.

Believe it or not, the car I did this to isn't running right. Well, it RUNS fine.. but it's having wiring problems!!! Arg...
I think it's because of that CB radio I temporarily installed for my Daytona 2000 trip.

Todd

82-T/A [Work]

Hey guys, someone just re-forwarded to me this post. I never realized that I never copied the pictures I was talking about.

I'll attach them now:





If it doesn't work, go to "http://community.webshots.com/s/image8/2/30/57/125623057lZOpbL_ph.jpg"
"http://community.webshots.com/s/image9/2/31/1/125623101VHNlXn_ph.jpg"


Todd,
2002 Ford Crown Victoria LX
1997 Pontiac Grand Am GT
1987 Pontiac Fiero SE / V6 5-Speed
1987 Pontiac Fiero SE / V6 Auto
1984 Pontiac Fiero 2m4 SE / WS6
1981 Pontiac TransAm WS6
1973 Volkswagen Type-2 Transporter

TomP

Thanks for the pics! Where've ya been lately? How's the 2.8 doing?

82-T/A [Work]

Hey Tom! What's up? It's been a while actually.

My 2.8 is now a 3.2.

I dropped in a 3.1 crank and rods, with hyperutectic .040 overbore pistons, 1.52:1 roller rockers... etc etc...

It's actually got lots of low-end power. But I kinda did a poor job on my homework. The cam I picked has no power over 4,000 rpms. It literally dies out as soon as it hits 4k. That's just how the cam was designed. It'll lay rubber for about 20 feet on my 235/60/15s in the rear. But the second it hits 4 grand, it's like it just stopps pulling completely... the rpms go up, but it doesn't do anything!

I also bought another 87 SE but this one has a 5-Speed. I'm preparing for a swap. I'm tired of the automatic.

Right now it's driving around with teh 3.2 and auto, which is pretty decent.. but when it's totally finished, with the 5-speed and everything it'll be perfect.

What have you done to your 2.8?

I hear swapping out the MPFI with a 2-bbl 350cfm or a 390cfm 4-bbl carb and intake really adds power to the engine.


Todd,
2002 Ford Crown Victoria LX
1997 Pontiac Grand Am GT
1987 Pontiac Fiero SE / V6 5-Speed
1987 Pontiac Fiero SE / V6 Auto
1984 Pontiac Fiero 2m4 SE / WS6
1981 Pontiac TransAm WS6
1973 Volkswagen Type-2 Transporter

7plagues

iTrader: (1)

wow this is very promising. Now we need a v6 guy here to get some before and after results. maybe see how much more power u get from a 3.1!