I took about 4 hours (total), polished and gasket matched the intake pipes, head and Y pipe of my srt and wanted to pass on the steps. This was easy work with a die grinder and air compressor without getting under the car. Basically I wanted to reduce the restrictions and improve the flow of air in the intake system. I will break the process it into different threads to provide more detail. Y pipe, Air Boxes, and Heads.

My term Airbox, that thinggy that has SRT cast into it that passes the compressor air out to the heads......

I took the parts off in this order.
Pull the air filter boxes and then Pull the BLACK plastic compressor throttle body inlet housing: 2 clips, a bit of a twist after clipping/releasing the 2 housing plastic clips.

Pull the airboxes (6) screws and 1 hose clamp each.

The Y is accessable now, three hose clamps and a sensor (caution sensor is fragile)

Take you time and LOOK before jumping in, recommend having a shop manual to assist your understanding of the parts/ steps.

Photos attached:

Gaskets1 This shows the UNDERLAP of the head ports as indicated by the factory intake gasket. This step ledge will cause turbulance due to the misplacement of factory core (core shift)

Inlet 1 Shows the head plugged with 3 towels and spray painted to MARK the area needing to be trimmed back, to "match the gasket"

How to plug the ports. I used three 3 separate paper towels, as I have done this before and it works. By doing this you form a barrier of any chips and makes clean up easy. Push in one, then the other so that they are layered. Wipe the head surfaces clean before you paint it so that you get a good image of the gasket outline.

I used an air grinder, you can mask [blankets] off the paint and vents etc, to prevent the chips from finding their way into the rest of the car. You neeed safety eye protection, please. Did I mention wear ear covers-protection......

Inlet 30 This the first port cut with a die grinder and carbide tool. The cut is just 1/2" deep to BLEND the port to accomidate the factory gasket. Be sure the towels are BELOW the grinder bit. My first gasket was stuck to the head, this is useful for alignment. Use the airbox bolts to align the intake gasket if it is loose or comes off with the airbox, this is important for correct positioning before you spray paint its SHADOW on to the head surface.

Inlet 31 All 6 ports are cut here and the chips are blown off the area with an air gun, blow two or three times to be totally clean.
The cutting is easy, just cut up to the paint line, this is still smaller than the gasket by a 64th" or so. T

The cleaning and prep is all important to keep trash out of the intake passages.

Inlet 34 Here is the proof of the efforts, you can see that the gasket is very close to the edge of the head and matches well.

You want to be sure that there no edges or flashing remaining on the port, surface which would affect the gasket sealing. Rubbing the edge with abrasive paper will do the job for you.

After the area is clean you can pull the towels out and wipe out the interior of the ports, clean clean clean. When you pull the towels out one at a time you wipe out any chips that are left. A vacuum cleaner is excellent to clean the towels and ports as you go.


Inlet 33 Now you can replace the factory gasket or the phenolic gaskets that LET is providing to improve thermal isolation and begin to do reassembly after you do the last step.

Inlet 34 A word from our sponser........Hank

LAST STEP COUNT YOUR PAPER TOWELS AND BE SURE YOU CAN SEE THE VALVES IN EACH PORT. THIS WILL PREVENT YOU FROM LEAVING A TOWEL IN THE ENGINE........CHECK TWICE, NOW WHY WOULD I BE SO INSISTANT THAT YOU CHECK THIS SIMPLE STEP????????????????

My next step is to work the Air boxes and match them to the gasket, polish the interior pipe and even do a little dress up to improve the engines appearence.

An air grinder is faster but a drill will work also. If you use a carbide cutter as I did, the aluminum will clog it often, this can be removed rapidly by running the tool against a wire wheel to clear the 'teeth'.

Iam also posting more threads on cleaning up the inlet and heads which I also did in this 4 hours effort. Woody

 

Awww, I thought you where porting the heads, damn that would of been more interessting!

 

I did not want to pull the heads on a 13,000 mile srt that is my toy. Woody

 

yeah I wish I could find a set of head on ebay one of these days.

 

So if I port and polish my intake I get a cat, and a r/c airplane, or is it only if I have a srt?

 

are there any hp or trq gains from this procedure?

 

Without porting and polishing the heads, I don't see what good this exercise does unless you intend to P & P the heads later.

Just my Dos Centavos !

 

Seat of the pants feels good then I got a Dyno run on the stock car with a needswings and the gasket matching. The dyno sheet is part of my signature if you look at it, you can expand it I got on a mustang Dyno about 330 at the rear wheels, Id say that is good info, Enjoy Woody Ps the heads were gasket matched as well, see photos please.

 

I always get a kick out of w.w.'s cats and airplane photos. You can tell he loves them because he puts at least one in every post he puts up. Cats and Planes. Cats and Planes.

 

THere was a guy on the mbworld forums who was selling an extra set of heads. PM me on there if you want his Name... I have it somewhere in my inbox on mbworld or in my email... i think.

 

I have way too many projects going on right now. I'm backed up 4 years deep in toys! but thanks for the offer.