Here's the progress I've made on the heads. I only have a couple pictures of how they were stock because I had already done a little porting to the intake side.

Stock form from AFR.



First cut.


After some blending.


Short turn. These I did by hand with coarse emery cloth.


Finished.




I have the intakes on one head finished and I'm about half way finished with them on the other. I'm not sure if I'm going to touch the exhaust since that's what I spent most of my time on the last time I ported them. I'll decide after I clean them and the combustion chambers.

Did you hit the pocket under the valve seat? Smoothing that out is what gives the greatest improvements, but, if you hit the seat, guess who'll need a valve job.

I did but just to the bottom of the seat and not the seat itself so there's no bump transitioning from the port to the seat.

I got a little off track from porting the cylinder heads when it dawned on me that I can do all this work to the heads but if the intake manifold doesn't support it what's the point. So I took a look at the intake and runners 1, 4 and 5 have a pretty big dog leg where they pinch down quite a bit. Runner 1 started out at .859 in the smallest pinch and is now 1.030. The only issue is I broke through the wall and will need to have it welded. I just started on the other ports so once I have them all finished I'll take the intake to someone to have it spot welded where I break through.

Runner 1 after a little work.


Where I broke through.


Still runner 1.


Runner 2.


Runner 3.


Runner 4.

Aren't there any gnarly off the shelf intakes for the Cobra that aren't so expensive? I understand the thrill of DIY and and saving a little dough when possible, but sometimes an off the shelf is a good way to go.

Mine is actually pretty good except for the lower. If I could afford it I'd buy a Holley lower which matches up to my Saleen/Vortech upper but I can't afford one at almost $400. I can however port the lower I have to what the Holley is out of the box. Guy told me that they're all over for sale on Corral but I only saw one lower by itself for $120 that was already sold. All the others are upper and lowers together for $400-$500.

The Vortech intake is essentially the same as a Holley Systemax. You're absolutely right too, all the porting in the world on a truck lower still wont flow what an off the shelf systemax will, and when you port one of those, holy fuck do they flow.

When I looked I saw four, now I can't find them. I'll keep looking, it's not really a holy grail piece.

I got about 80% done and then took the manifold to be welded. I picked it up today and will take some pictures of how it looks now before I finish it up. I ended up going through ports 1 and 5. I also ordered all my parts to put it back together today. I still need to finish the last 20% and then finish porting the heads so that I can install the new valve seals.

Here's how the welds came out.

Port 1




Port 5