DIY Head Modification

Sideways Technologies Forum

Neil Collingwood

Tools and Workspace

Figure 1 Required Tools Figure 2 Depth Gauge

Figure 1 shows the tools you will need to complete the work. You will  obviously need some form of
power tool, the one shown is a Makita with a six mil collets, and will rev to 22000 revs which I run
through a 600 watt light dimmer switch to control the speed. You will need a grind stone like the one
shown; it is a 60 grit silicon carbide stone. The one shown is an inch diameter, but if you have a worn
one that would be better as the inch one will collide with the valve guide unless you cut it down to
size. I prefer to start the modifying with the rotary burr shown, but these can be expensive. If you
look at figure 2, you will see a little tool I am holding, this is a depth gauge and should be shaped to
fit the short side radius, drilled, a self tapper screwed in and the tip of the self tapper ground off. I will
tell you what depth to set it at later. The other important things are a face mask, and a vacuum
cleaner to suck all the dust away.

Just thought I would show this picture, just to show you

where I work and that you don't need a really large
workshop to modify heads. Some stands to put the head on
are a good idea, that way you are not chasing the head
around all over the bench. The other important thing which
is just out of picture is the vacuum cleaner to suck all the
dust away, or you are soon going to have your work area
full of iron dust. Also in the picture is a valve re-facing tool,
it's a Black and Decker which I paid £110.00 for, which had
been reconditioned. Although it maybe old it’s a real
substantial cast piece of equipment, and does a good
job.  Behind that is a press for which I use for pressing
valve guides in and out and other small jobs. In the far
corner is the Super Flow 110 flow bench. Also not shown I
Figure 2 Workshop
have a Serdi valve seat cutter which I use to cut three
angled valve seats. That's about it, you don't need all this
stuff but I find it helps me and saves me farming work out. Most engine shops are capable of cutting
the 3 angle valve seats for a reasonable cost.

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DIY Head Modification
Sideways Technologies Forum
Neil Collingwood

Port Modifications
To start your DIY mods you need to have made a depth gauge and set its depth to between  2
-2.5mm. If you look at figure 3 you will see the piece of metal we are going to remove. 

Figure 3 Short Side Cut Depth

Now you need a rotary burr

something 25mm x 13mm with
a flame shape will do the job
spot on. Remember the shape
that you saw on the cut away
head, so start shallow and
steadily go deeper to the depth
of the depth gauge following the
radius round the port and finish
shallow. This is the depth you
are going to go too. DO NOT GO
ANY DEEPER. 

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Figure 4 Cutout Shape in Port
DIY Head Modification
Sideways Technologies Forum
Neil Collingwood

Now you need a ball shape grind stone,

but before you switch the grinder on
make sure the grind stone will follow
the short side radius without crashing
into the valve guide. This is the difficult
part for me to try and describe how to
do it, starting at the centre of the short
side radius and to the right hand side
towards the outside of the chamber you
need a long radius, the port well laid
back. To the left hand side you need to
grind straight down from the valve seat
and form a small radius blending it all
together across the port. Difficult I
know, but you need to look at the photo
to see how I’ve done it. The small
radius and the long lead into the back of
the valve seat are for the low lift flow,
and the large radius port laid back, is to
improve the high lift flow.

You now just need to tidy it up a bit to

Figure 5 Radius roughed in using 60 grit stone
make sure there are no bumps and
lumps and it all flows together as well
as you get it. 

Figure 6 Matching the Short Side Radius Profiles

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DIY Head Modification
Sideways Technologies Forum
Neil Collingwood

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DIY Head Modification
Sideways Technologies Forum
Neil Collingwood

Figure 7 Tidied Up Port

Now you need to get someone to cut your

valve seats, the top cut is 30 deg. the
second is 45 deg. 1.6mm wide, the bottom
cut is 60 deg. The valve will need a 45 deg.
seat 1.6mm wide with a 30 deg back cut.
On the photograph this is my valve seat
cutter a small Serdi also you will see at side
of the head the vacuum cleaner pipe how I
set it up to extract grinding dust out of the
port whilst I was grinding.

This is a before and after graph, it was

ground as I would think you would grind
them at home, no attempt has been made
to improve it.

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DIY Head Modification
Sideways Technologies Forum
Neil Collingwood

Further Modifications
After looking at the flow chart, I was a bit disappointed with the flow from 250 thou onwards. So
instead of grinding some more I thought I would try a different valve, I had an odd TT1714     valve
but this needs a bit of work doing to it to get it to work properly, you need to cut the 45 deg seat a
little wider and then put a 30 deg backcut on it to bring it back to size. The picture should shows, from
left to right, standard valve refaced with a 45 deg seat, middle standard valve refaced and a back cut
and TT valve refaced and back cut. 

Because the TT valve is a few thou bigger, I decided to cut a new seat, 30,45 and 60 deg as normal
but 1.3 mil wide.

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DIY Head Modification
Sideways Technologies Forum
Neil Collingwood

After these two jobs were done it was back to the flow bench, the flow here is now very similar to one
of my full race heads developed back in 1996, it went on to win many races and set lap records until
2004  some of which still stand today. If the valve throats and the ports were cleaned up I am sure
this head would flow two or three more cubic foot than it has here.

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DIY Head Modification
Sideways Technologies Forum
Neil Collingwood

Figure 8 before and After Images

Figure 9 Final Port Finish

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