mopowers
Well-Known Member
Do you guys have tricks on aligning cylinder head ports with gaskets and intake manifold?
Intake-Head Alignment
- Thread starter mopowers
- Start date
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Harbor Freight has a gizmo that has a bendable neck camera and a screen to view what it see's.
The intake can be moved only a little but until you egg the holes.
The intake can be moved only a little but until you egg the holes.
mopowers
Well-Known Member
Anyone else have any installation tricks for ensuring alignment of intake ports?
Use the gasket as a template for laying out your porting guide marks for both the intake and head. They should align when put together.
Locomotion
Well-Known Member
If part of the alignment issue is vertical, which means if the bolt holes are off much so are the ports, then milling is the only proper option. People have elongated holes in the intake to get the bolts started, but that doesn't fix the port alignment issue.
I like to lay the intake on the assembled long block without a gasket. If everything lines up correctly that way, you will need to mill the intake gasket surface or the intake port head surface the same amount as the gasket thickness you will use. If the ports & bolt holes don't line up without a gasket, then I try to estimate the milling difference needed,+ or -, the gasket thickness.
I found it very difficult to get ports aligned perfectly even after milling because they don't allow any gasket matching on the heads or intake in the class I race in. There are also production tolerances, core shift, etc. in OEM and aftermarket parts that work against you. That includes the little bit that an intake can be moved forward and backwards.
I like to lay the intake on the assembled long block without a gasket. If everything lines up correctly that way, you will need to mill the intake gasket surface or the intake port head surface the same amount as the gasket thickness you will use. If the ports & bolt holes don't line up without a gasket, then I try to estimate the milling difference needed,+ or -, the gasket thickness.
I found it very difficult to get ports aligned perfectly even after milling because they don't allow any gasket matching on the heads or intake in the class I race in. There are also production tolerances, core shift, etc. in OEM and aftermarket parts that work against you. That includes the little bit that an intake can be moved forward and backwards.
If you milled the block side of the head and know how much, you can mill the Intake side of the small block head, .0095 per .010 milled off the block. This will get you very close, but as stated above, there are tolerances on everything. I always mill both sides of the head and have never had an alignment problem. Not a Gnats a** racer but I do gasket match top and sides of the intake and head ports using the gaskets I am going to use...
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