i know u can port and polish ur own heads, they even sell kits for it, but can u do ur own valve job? like a bit(s) that u'd chuck in ur drill at the three different angles for a 3 angle vavle job? and what about for opening up the vales? to bore it out just a bit? not something i plan on doing now, to cold out. waiting till spring or a heated garage...

 

Seems like I've seen valve seat grinders and so forth for sale at JC Whitney, and I know the shops have gotten more expensive on doing valve jobs. But, in my opinion, this is something that you only 1-2 x per life of the motor, unless you have really bad luck.

I'd opt for the shop to do it. I know some people bore out their cylinders with hone's and other stuff like that, but I wouldn't.


MDS -- 88 F150 with original motor 204,000 miles, looking to go to 250,000.

 

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 01-Nov-02 AT 02:59 PM (EST)]Home porting isn't that hard to do, if you keep it sane and don't hog too much out. Just cleanup what you've got as apposed to grinding a whole new port into it. If you're lookin for max power/torque in an engine it will be worth having someone experienced to do it. You can actually make the head flow worse.

The valve grinders are a machine that will hold your valve in a chuck and rotate it one way while holding it against a special grinding stone, at a specific angle, turning the other way. Sorta like a lathe. They can be set for all three angles.

The seat grinders are small round grinding stones that fit over a rod that runs through the valve guide. Each stone has a different angle. Usual angles are 30 deg, 45 deg, 60 deg. There is a light spring between the stone and head to allow it to float above the seat. A large electric motor with a special coupler for the stone is then attached and used to spin the stone and shove it down against the spring, along the valve guide rod, and against the seat.

In my opinion this is machine shop work. Some people I know have the tooling. One does EXCELLENT work. Several do barely acceptable. Everybody else just makes junk. As in iron pile / scrap metal junk.

Dang it, I alway hit post and think of something else. If you want good pictures, try to find an old motor's manual. Preferably from the fifties. Back then you didn't send anything off to be rebuilt. You did it yourself. They would even grind they're own cams sometimes back then.