Cylinder head cleanup gasket match

[Lunchbox]

Recently, i took my cylinder heads off to replace some noisy and worn out lifters and figured while i was in, i might polish the combustion chambers, gasket match the intake and exhaust ports, intake manifold ports, and index the plugs while the heads are off. I've done a little bit of research and appears Dykem, scribe and lots of patience along with a good set of OEM gaskets is whats needed.

With this being said, I don't plan on playing with the intake or exhaust ports beyond gasket matching them at this point because that just gets into another can of worms that i think is probably best left for a professional that does this for a living and knows the heads well. I already planned on replacing the valve stem seals which requires pulling valves and springs and such to freshen up the heads while i was in, which is what prompted me to look into what i mentioned above.

I wanted to see if anyone has done this on their own or perhaps if anyone has an input on weather or not this is worth the time. I don't expect massive gains out of this, but i know it'll help in the long run with forced induction down the road. Does anyone have any input or suggestions or even kits with most of the bits/pieces they might have used for something like this?

[GTS Dean]

My engine builder wanted to mill the heads and do some major porting while he was rebuilding mine last year. I was resistive - just going with new slightly larger valves and better springs/retainers and some pocket porting. I know that early Gen 2 efforts by TNT/HMS found some thin castings and I didn't want to risk losing a head on his first Viper try. I suggested a port match, but he said the long runners were a fundamental shortcoming and that the very tall oval ports were not limiting flows at normal engine rpms.

[Lunchbox]

Nice! Are those Gen 3 rocker arms?

I did notice your cylinder heads don't look like they have the raised tiny piece of aluminum near the spark plug hole on the intake side. Wonder if this is a later model thing?

I think on the exhaust side i might take a high grit flapper wheel to the port a bit to smooth it out the casting but not really take out any material. Just enough to polish it up and then also polish the combustion chamber as well.
The intake ports do have some not as smooth transitions here and there on the backside of the valve but not sure i want to touch any of that.

[GTS Dean]

Yes, they are Gen 3 parts. They seem to kill the low end torque in favor of mid-top end performance. I don't think it would hurt a bit to polish things up while you have the opportunity.