I am planning on taking off my plenum to polish it so I have been doing some research on this site all morning. I have found that in a lot of the threads, members say "are you going to port it?" or "might as well port it while you have it off.". What is porting, what does it do, and how is it done?

Thanks

 

good article here explains it all...

http://www.eecis.udel.edu/~davis/z28/buildup/plenum/

 

Thanks! The article isn't as in-depth as I would like though. I am completely new at this. Anymore?

 

basically all your doing is making holes larger. you use a die grinder to do it. you can check the home page here for info and do a search for plenum porting, tons of info will come up.

 

Porting looks difficult but it is alot easier than it looks. Anything from gasket matching to full length will take its share of time but worth it over all if you take your time. Porting is a taboo in engine building because its results are not very stable and if done wrong can cause a loss in power or worse yet going to deep and hitting a jacket. I have ported everything from rotary engines to v6 top ends and my share of TB's and get yourself a GOOD set of eye wear or get ready to go to the doctor, I have had a peice of aluminum get around standard eye wear and get in my eye (not pleasant).

Some engines really wake up to porting like the 2.8 v6 will get a nice chunk of power and others with restrictive intakes. When I port I like to contour for easier flow and then polish for a nice smooth finish and easier flow. I started with a couple electric die grinders but now I have a air compressor and the tools to make it alot easier.

 

It's not as difficult as it sounds (if at all). I do agree, it is a really good idea if you run a TPI setup. Eventually you'll read how the stock setup is restrictive and so on. I don't know how much money you'd want to spend or work you wanna do, but I have probably close to $1000+ in just my intake setup alone (it's polished too).

I have a 52mm throttle body, matched to a ported plenum, matched to a set of AS&M runners, matched to a ported manifold. The plenum I port matched myself, bought the runners from azspeed.com, and got the manifold from ebay (which, amazingly, matched the runners). The idea is to get as much air flowing as freely as possible. When I tear the engine down for the heads/cam swap, I'll match the manifold to the heads if it needs it. I am also looking to rid myself of the stock rubber "speedbump" intake tract and replace it with some smooth (and shiney) aluminum tubing. Add to that, I removed the screens from my MAF sensor and I will have done about as much as one can do on this type of setup. Most all of this info I gleaned from TGO and it's very helpful members.

The less restriction the air has to move, the more velocity you'll get/less turbulance you'll get= more power. It's kind of like crack, one mod leads to another and to another.