[lust4speed]

I would recommend sending the heads out. There's nothing better than lots of experience for good porting. That translates into the 20th set of heads you do will be great - and by then you will realize just how badly you butchered your first set of heads.

If you do want to learn, the best advise I can give is to do small steps and complete each step for each port. Start with gasket matching all eight intake ports and nothing else, then lightly clean up all eight pushrod bulges, and so on for both heads. Spending a full day on the first intake port will really screw you up on day two when you try and remember all of what you did on day one. Plus if you throw in the towel after a few days the ports will be pretty much equal and the heads can be run with the minor improvements. If you stop with three out of eight ports done you're screwed.

[455Grandville]

Originally Posted by 79Poncho

Hello all,

I'm in the planning phase of my 455 build and I'd like to see what people's thoughts are on the value of porting work for my build.

I've got a '74 4-bolt main 455, std bore.

I'm planning to run forged pistons (Sealed Power L-2359NF - Speed-Pro Forged Pistons) with stock rods on a stock crank

I'm considering the SD performance hydraulic roller "Stump Puller" grind

I have a set of 6x-8 heads that came off a 400 that I wiped the crank on. They've been milled to reach 93cc chambers and have 2.11 and 1.77 valves. I think it's about 9.57:1 compression.

I've thought about porting these heads at home using Jim Hand's book, but am hesitating to get started due to repeatability concerns from port to port. I'm considering if it's worth to do the work myself, pay to ship the heads to SD Performance for CNC work, or just bolt them on as-is and see how it runs.

I'm not looking for anything crazy, any form of 455 is a bump up from the Oldsmobile 350 small block I'm running now.

Thoughts? I'd really like to hear from guys building and running mild 455 combos to see what the impact of 20-40 cfm really is.

Thanks,
Geoff

I built mine in 2001 and had a place shot peen the rods and I resized them with ARPs. Today that might cost you close to new aftermarket rods, so like another poster said I’d go that route.

I started with a like new 1975 200 horse smogger with around 26,000 orig miles and yanked it because of an oil leak the car had due such limited use. It ran great, but it lacked power.

I rebuilt a 1970 455 short block w/.030” forged trw pistons & balanced it & used a torque plate.
I went with the larger chamber 6X heads, I Milled em, and pocket ported em, did some bowl blending, a 3 angle valve job with new stainless valves. I believe the compression came to 9.4 to 1. The porting and bowl blending I did just what I was taught with Ford FEs and applied it on the 6xs.
Added a 1971 non egr intake as I was told they were superior to later egr manifolds, comp cams 255 Dual Energy cam, roller tip rocker arms, and added Ram Air Restoration exhaust manifolds.

Really, nothing special and I’m not sure how many cfms I gained but the end result was night and day. For a tall feared land yacht it moves pretty quick.