XelderX's Intake Porting

xelderx · Dec 29, 2004

I finally got motivated to work on the Pro5. I'm moving up to Street Prepared for next season so I get to do some more modifications. I figured porting the head and intake manifold would be easy and quick since I had a spare one hanging around. This is my ongoing photo journal of the work.

The first picture is the stock intake gasket. The second picture is my enlarging of the intake openings. There is quite a bit of gasket there that is not needed. The third pic is the newly "ported" gasket on the stock intake. You can see just how much material will be removed. I used a magic marker to blacken the manifold around the openings so I could scribe the new larger opening.

The other pic is of me slaving away... which is not important right now.

I'll hopefully be able to finish the manifold tomorrow afternoon and start on the head after I get it off the motor.

KpaBap · Dec 29, 2004

Carp, that's a lot of metal to be removed. Are you gonna polish the insides too?

xelderx · Dec 29, 2004

KpaBap said:
Carp, that's a lot of metal to be removed. Are you gonna polish the insides too?

Not to a mirror shine. I'll smooth them back down to the stock texture with my dremel when I'm done. The head might get a little tricky since, per the rules I can port match it, but I can only modify the first inch from the gasket surface. That doesn't leave me much room to compensate for the amount of metal being removed.

KpaBap · Dec 29, 2004

I always wonder, do they pull your head off at the auto-x to check if you have modded it? (confused)

Also, wouldn't it sort of defeat the purpose and create more turbulence if only the last inch of intake port was wider than the rest?

twilightprotege · Dec 29, 2004

i like big dial-up friendly pics! hehehehe

always good to see some home-made work!

ps, see if you can get some sort of long bit for the dremel and smooth out as far back as you can

pps, someone should start up a little business and offer port matching of the IM - just do a core exchange setup

flat_black · Dec 29, 2004

Lovely. =) I've done this to a bunch of manifolds now, and it looks like you're doing pretty well! The areas around the injector bung, where it sticks out into the flow, you're going to probably want to smooth that out and round the pointier edges of the manifold to keep the flow nice and smooth around the injector. =)

PR5Matt · Dec 29, 2004

Poor guy, you need a 2-stage compressor and a die grinder. If you lived near WV you could come down and use mine.

xelderx · Dec 29, 2004

I used to have a die grinder when I worked at the motorcycle dealer. I miss that thing. I'm going to smooth it out a lot more. I got started on it late yesterday, so I stopped before I finished the first port.

KpaBap..they would never check unless you got protested...it's pretty much up to the members to be honest. If I was running mid pack all the time it wouldn't matter to me since I knew that the illegal mods weren't making a difference, but if I start winning I would feel bad. I'm sure there are lots of people running illegal mods that no one knows about (I was for a while, but when I started winning I decided to change classes to where the mod was legal) ut my conscience is too strong.

Rogue · Dec 30, 2004

hey Justin, when you're done and have that installed you'll have an extra stock one, right? How about porting that one out for me?

I could drive up and do the swap.

(2thumbs)

(a man can hope, can't he?)

BlkZoomZoom · Dec 30, 2004

Is your car N/a or do you have a turbo? If it is N/a then what your doing is gonna slow you down, not give you h.p. N/a's like a little thing called port velocity. F/I can get away with slightly bigger ports due to the turbo pushing the air through, however even on a F/I you don't want to go too far. What your doing is too far.

Also there is no way their is enough room in the head to enlarge the openings that much. You will run into a water jacket.

Porting is all about the little things.

xelderx · Dec 30, 2004

BlkZoomZoom said:
Is your car N/a or do you have a turbo? If it is N/a then what your doing is gonna slow you down, not give you h.p. N/a's like a little thing called port velocity. F/I can get away with slightly bigger ports due to the turbo pushing the air through, however even on a F/I you don't want to go too far. What your doing is too far.

Also there is no way their is enough room in the head to enlarge the openings that much. You will run into a water jacket.

Porting is all about the little things.

We'll see. I'm pretty sure that my limitations within the rules will keep me from running into a water jacket. I have only have an inch to work with on the head. If I mess it up then no biggie. I have an extra one of those too. I'm betting that the funnel shape I'm going to be putting into the head will help with the velocity and my enlarged ports will open up the flow. It's a give and take kinda theory. Honestly I don't know how we can find the limits until someone starts pushing them. If the ports are too big then we'll know after the fact. Right now they are only about 1/16th of an inch bigger than what everyone else has been porting out.

xelderx · Dec 30, 2004

Also remember that removing the VTCS improved the velocity of the intake at the exact point where I'm making it bigger. If it works out right the improved velocity from the removal of the VTCS will equal out with the slowing of the air that the bigger port creates. I'll just have roughly the same velocity as stock, but more air. More air means more power. All theory...we'll see what happens.

twilightprotege · Dec 30, 2004

a point to mention is that chances are the stock manifold stops flowing anymore at say 6000rpm, which is why it dies above that...porting the IM will keep flowing right up to redline

BlkZoomZoom · Dec 30, 2004

I'm not exactly sure where your theory comes from, but all "theories" of head porting have been proven many times over. Just because it's a 2.0 Mazda motor doesn't mean that the theories on porting have to be relearned. You are not " finding the limits" you are ruining an intake manifold and head.

Your theory of the "improved velocity" from VTCS removal is also wrong. The air is not gaining any speed because you took a object out of the path. You increased flow by removing the object. Now by opening only a couple of inches up you have created basically a resonance chamber for all sorts of turbulance to occur, also decreasing velocity.

Now that I sound like a complete jerk...

I suggest researching the subject intensely, then find your local performance engine builder and ask him what he would do with it.

xelderx · Dec 30, 2004

I've researched it here in the forums from everyone who has done it and they all have noticed gains. Now I'm taking it a few millimeters further and it suddenly becomes "ruining the manifold and head"? The larger port really doesn't qualify as a resonance chamber since flow into and out of it will be much more laminar than just the stock setup by itself. The removal of the VTCS will improve the velocity since the air has nothing in its path. It will have less "tumble" in it created by the butterflys and rod setup. The idea that the air will always be moving at a constant velocity is sound as long as the air is an irresitable force, but it isn't so anything put in it's way slows it down. I think the fact that it's a Mazda application is totally relevant. There is no research anywhere, but on this forum as to what works on a stock Mazda manifold. I know what a trusted performance shop would do, but there are no trusted shops around here and especially none that have ever done a Mazda before. I'd rather just learn what works on my own instead of paying other people to do it. I greatly respect your opinion and your ideas given you've got on of the fastest MSP's on the board, but I'm comfortable with the fact that this may not help at all. Believe me if this was the only manifold and head that I had I would be a lot more conservative with it. Luckily I have the ability to play around with this one and learn. Thats something I can't do if I hand it to someone else to do for me.

You're not sounding like a jerk

akhilleus · Dec 31, 2004

Honestly, you arent going much over from what a stock Probe FS-DE has. Although you will be reducing the velocity, since the larger area will slow the air down, you will also be creating a vacuum that will maintain the velocity within norms. However porting a head is tricky business, just dremeling it out isnt obviously the best way to go. If anything i would make sure you polish it to the best of your ability and make sure the transition area is free of any pockets, dips or bumps. Luckily you have a spare. It will be interesting to hear of the results.

I had planned on doing something similar to the galant, I had a head lined up and a much larger port IM on hand, unfortunately the head ended up lacking the distributor gear. oh well. Have fun!

xelderx · Dec 31, 2004

If I have a little extra cash laying around I'll put my car on the dyno with the stock IM on it and then switch everything out and dyno it again. my car has never been on the dyno so I'm really curious to see where it is at.

twilightprotege · Dec 31, 2004

that'll be interesting!

00RedProtege · Jan 3, 2005

Reading this has got me confused. One is saying that N/A buildups will gain little from porting I/M while another is saying it will help. So twilight since you have done this already I want to know how much of a difference did you see when you ported the I/M and the head???

01bluemp3 · Jan 3, 2005

xelderx said:
If I have a little extra cash laying around I'll put my car on the dyno with the stock IM on it and then switch everything out and dyno it again. my car has never been on the dyno so I'm really curious to see where it is at.

Ill help pitch in i wanna get my car on there too, and that will let me know if i wanna port and polish.

XelderX's Intake Porting

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