Port & polish: is it really worth the time & effort?

[dojrs]

Been a while since I posted. my 2005 4wd LT tahoe has the following mods.

1) summit stage 2 cam
2) long tube headers
3) trunion upgrade by summit
4) valve springs
5) water pump
all the usual stuff when i rebuilt the top end.

less than 2k miles and now i'm burning oil from the valve stem seals...... that the mechanic supposedly replaced. also when he was pulling the factory exhaust manifolds the front passenger bolt broke and had to be re-tapped. while re-tapping the bolt hole he drilled too far and drilled into the water jacket. thread tape fixed the water leak, but could the bolt be touching anything further in to cause more damage?

here in lies my question though. I'm going to buy a used head and rebuild it for the passenger side. is it really worth the extra $$ to port and polish the factory heads? or just build the passenger side like it is now and leave it be?

 

[SUBURBIAN]

Are you building a max effort race engine? If the answer is no, then don't.

 

[undy]

No, not in your situation.

 

[RST Dana]

Been a while since I posted. my 2005 4wd LT tahoe has the following mods.

1) summit stage 2 cam
2) long tube headers
3) trunion upgrade by summit
4) valve springs
5) water pump
all the usual stuff when i rebuilt the top end.

less than 2k miles and now i'm burning oil from the valve stem seals...... that the mechanic supposedly replaced. also when he was pulling the factory exhaust manifolds the front passenger bolt broke and had to be re-tapped. while re-tapping the bolt hole he drilled too far and drilled into the water jacket. thread tape fixed the water leak, but could the bolt be touching anything further in to cause more damage?

here in lies my question though. I'm going to buy a used head and rebuild it for the passenger side. is it really worth the extra $$ to port and polish the factory heads? or just build the passenger side like it is now and leave it be?

Many years ago I had a 2 door Blazer, 1976, that had a SB 400 from the factory. Once it died, I built a 350 .30 over. I was able to procure some late model heads from an IROC SB and had plenty of time on my hands. I spent hours of free time I had working on “real” job and ported and polished these just for kicks. I was to totally surprised to see my ride smoke the 10 wide rears after it was all buttoned up. No turbo, or SC, or nitrous. All “natural”.

 

[OR VietVet]

For a basically stock set up I see no reason to do that but I can see you have started adding some performance mods. What do you want to do with this rig? Gonna go further with the mods? After you do a port and polish are you gonna index the plugs? Roller rockers? Larger injectors? It is called "Cubic Dollars".

 

[dojrs]

Once I get it back together I’ll just stop with it bc it’s my DD.