My Vortec heads have screw in studs, so I've got some small holes in the side of my intake ports. I did a search and it seems like no one is too concerned about them, but I dont want these interfering with my airflow and it doesnt seem like it would be hard to fill them with something. What should I use if I want to fill these? Is it probably not worth my time?

 

Epoxy or longer studs. It may well be worth the effort.

 

I've never freaked out over that either- almost all small block heads have them. I'd make sure whatever you plug them with stays put. Dropping a blob of epoxy into a running engine would make you wish you had never messed with them in the first place.

 

Well the heads arent on the engine yet, the reason I ask is because if I want to do something about it I';m going to need to do it within the next week or two because my engine is VERY close to finally coming together!

What kind of epoxy would you use? It's going to deal with heat cycles and gas all around it... Im not sure what stands up to that.

 

JB weld. I have some in the intake ports of the 396 heads.

 

I used those sticks of metal based Epoxy. Kinda looks like a short grey hotdog, with black filling. Maybe more like a thinner twinkie then I guess.

Dries to a cement-like consistency, can be kinda flaky later. I think it held up in the ports well though, i've had the heads off since I put it in and i'm *pretty sure* it's still there.
This stuff is fairly cost-effective. I'd think JB weld would get expensive, unless you can buy it in bulk.

I think Vizard (or someone) documented 5-10cfm from filling these in.

 

The notches in the roof of a vortec head are very slight and don't affect the air flow much if at all. The big voids in the roof of a 305 head reduce the flow of a ported head by 8cfm. But these voids are huge. That my be worth doing something about. I would not bother filling the slight notch in a vortec heads roof thu. This is not the high flow area of the port. The common wall side is. unless you've fully ported the intake port and are using larger valves you're wasting your time and risk having the epoxy or JB weld fall out and travel into the cylinder or get stuck between the valve seat and valve causing he valve to crash into the piston. OUCH!!!

 

Be sure to put some RTV gasket sealer or thread sealer on the threads of the exhaust rocker studs. They go right into the water jackets.

 

Every set of trick flow heads have a hole in the intake port. I just used teflon tape on my studs. 6 years later and 40K miles no problems.