I think my heads are going to be coming off in the early part of the summer.

Is there a way I could improve the exhaust flow on my heads being they are off? They'll go in to be decked and to have an LT1/LT4 intake pattern drilled on them.

I know that the combustion chamber is an area that should never be touched, but could I just like enlarge the exhaust ports and smooth them? Would this allow them to flow more on the exhaust side?

If you look at intake CFM on the intake side only, the 1.94 and 1.50 vortec's flow more than Edelbrock RPM heads. The only place they lack is in exhaust flow.

Thanks.
Ben T.

 

A basic port and polish is worth 20 cfm on these exhaust ports.
You need to open up and smooth the ridge just under the valve seat where the last machined angle meets the as cast port bowl.
You can smooth and radius the short side radius.
The valve guide boss is right in the way of the flow out of the port. You can slim and trim and streamline it so air can pass around it on both sides easier. The port opening doesn't need
to be made bigger, just smooth and polish the walls.
You can also have a 30* back cut done on the exhaust valves.
The latter assembled vortec heds have this 30* cut from the factory.
If you really want more flow install a larger 1.6" valve and port and polish.
The chamber will benefit from smoothing and polishing too.
Just don't dramaticly change the shape. Remove all sharp edges.
Doing the same basic pocket port job on the intake side will help at some valve lifts and hurt at others. Wether you will see an actual gain in performance by doing this I don't know.
The intake side will respond to a full on porting job and larger 2.02 valves but you'll need a fairly radical high lift cam to see any benefit. Don't polish the intake port.