dont worry, not attempting this on the X....looking to do a DIY port + polish job on the cylinder heads in my project car (92 dodge stealth V6 3.0 SOHC)

wondering if anyone has experience with doing this....its a budget build and im looking to squeeze the most power out of this motor for the least $$$...originally wanted to twin turbo swap it, but thats out of the question...

from what i understand, it basically involves smoothing out the combustion chamber, intake and exhaust runners, and the ports on the head and the intake/exhaust manifolds...any input? ideas? best tool(s) for the job? planning on picking up a decent die grinder and some carbide bits, along with polishing tips and maybe some sanding discs?

seen quite a few writeups and DIY guides for doing this online....some claim decent power gains, others claim its useless and will destroy your cylinder head....im not too worried about screwing it up, if i do i'll buy a new head (readily available on the 3000gt forums for dirt cheap)...

don't buy cheap carbide bits. I'd recommend snap on. Get the extended shank ones at that. I'm guessing the cylinder heads are aluminum? if so you may wanna practice a little ahead of time before taking on something you could do damage to by over porting. Aluminum heads are really easy to take too much material off of cause the aluminum so soft, hence the suggestion of practice. Just make sure after wards you clean them out really good to get all the metal shavings out. just don't grind real close to the valve seats either. if you mess one of those up you're looking at a valve job. I'd done a few heads in the past two years and have 4 more off my Jeep to do in the next 16 weeks.

Ian pretty much nailed it.

i saw it done on Speed. I would send it out but thats just me.

yeah if i had the money i would send them out too....but then again, if i had the money, id be ditching the engine and swapping the twin turbo engine.....

just one of those things where i'd hate to pay out the ass to have something done when i can probably do it myself lol

thanks for the tip(s) ian....gonna pick up a die grinder sometime this week and some decent bits for it.....over on XF someone posted about a die grinder from harbor freight that has a flexible shaft that was good for getting in the weird angles...only $50 with a bunch of bits so i might just get that one

i'll keep everyone posted with the results in the build thread

Another thing that is one of the biggest differences, is match porting (making the the port on the head match the port on the manifold exactly). You do this by buying a "top quality gasket" (not a cheap one) and set it up on the ports with the studs in, now mark the inside or the gasket on the port. Then grind the ports to match the gasket and repeat on the manifold side. (You can do this on both the intake and exhaust sides). Now everything matches all the way through the runner and it doesn't turbulate as it goes though (you can just imagine how much it messes with the air flow if the flow hits the edge of the head as it goes though, lol). It's one of the best improvements you can do for cheap.