start at the front, make sure all accessories have tight bushings and spin freely, i like electric fans but they just don't compete with a mechanical fan for moving large amounts of air quickly so stick with it if you have one.
Onto the engine with full roller rocker arms, this will free up a bunch of pony's..
Polish the throttle body bore and chamfer the entrance where the hoses connect to smooth out the air flow at the entrance into the throttle body, this equates to more air flow into the plenum, which equals more air into the runners.
When ever making mods to an intake system just think like an aircraft engineer and remember that air does not like to hit ledges and bumps and make sharp turns and what not, it likes a rounded leading edge and a sharp trailing edge.
Get a bottle of spray-shine for plastic and use it inside the intake tubes running from air cleaner to throttle body, now the air is loving life and making a beeline for your engine.
People are still stuck in the days before port injection and think the intake runners still need to be rough, lord have mercy with port injection the air doesn't even reach fuel until it exits the manifold and goes in the head so the shinier the better in side and out from entrance to exit, there are several company's that do extrude honing which is pushing an abrasive paste through the manifold leaving it nice and shiny on the way out, it does this by removing a small amount of material from the runners as it flows through which also makes them (slightly) larger, an engine is nothing more then a big air pump, the more air you can pump through equals more power to ya.
I know it's a pain in the **** but take the time to index the plugs, worst case scenario is that right now at least 2 of your spark plugs are facing the chamber with the electrode hiding behind the ground strap, this delays propagation and results in those 2 cylinders lagging a little behind the others, you don't want the ground strap hiding the electrode from the mixture and it only gets worse with rpm.
Factory mufflers are VERY restrictive, i like the Hooker MaxFlow, get's er done without excessive noise, want more silence just add resonators, if you run dual's don't forget to add a crossover directly after the collectors, this adds collector length and boosts low end..
Some or all of this stuff may seem insignificant to you but when you add everything up it makes quite the difference, a few horsepower here a few horsepower there, by the time you're all done you freed up at least 25 horses, probably more. Not all these mods apply to increasing V/E but they will contribute heavily to an increase in power.. have fun

 

I've ran flow benches in the past and I can assure you from a 80 grit finish in a port to a shiny polish finish in a port makes no difference, not one single cfm to be gained.

 

For the sake of argument i will not tell you that dozens of cylinder head manufacturers/porters/polishers/etc. all disagree with you

 

this is a tough question answer due to application. injected or carbed is my next question. done some flow bench time and seen some ports suprise me and didn't look so good and seen some shiney ports that didn't flow so well, they looked good but didn't meet expectations. i understand where mark is going and a polished/shiney usually don't do well. in the head the fuel will puddle sometimes. CnC ported heads aren't shiney until someone makes them shiney. shiney usually means high rpm application. good luck on this debate! i will never have a shiney ported head!

 

keep in mind that not all planes use a laminar flow wing, one of the first was the p-51 mustang.

fastest way to boost V/E? a blower huffin air!

 

Has anyone ever dimpled a throttle body intake like a golf ball? Physics would dictate it flow better.

 

This one is my favorite option.

 

I have wondered about that too, although more for the purpose of improving a cars aerodynamics. maybe if the short turn in the intake and exhaust ports were dimpled it would help with airflow, at least I would think it would more than on a throttle body. although I have seen guys that "knife edge" the throttle blades for a little extra flow.

 

There we go, I think I'm going to knife edge and dimple my throttle blade, it w
I'll be like it's not even there!

Actually, I wonder if the dimpling has as efficient of an effect on a concave surface like a TB, as it on convex surfaces.

Yes, dimpling has been proven to increase car aerodynamics, some manufacturers have began dimpling the under body panels. Even myth busters found it to work. It's only a matter of time before hoods or something start coming dimpled.

 

Before dimpling was discovered we would just leave the short side radius of the intake runners rough and keep the outside radius smooth, this would help the airflow make the corner and keep the fuel in suspension..