I picked up the head from the machine shop a few weeks ago hadn't had too much time to really do anything on the engine lately. This past weekend I was able to pick up where I left off. The only thing left to do was gasket match the head itself. Ideally I would have liked to do that before the new valves and guides were in, but it wasn't an option so I just had to take extra precautions when porting the runners. I unwrapped the head from it's plastic bag and used newspaper and shop rags to shove down in the head to prevent aluminum shavings from getting past the valves and guides. I taped of the remaining open areas of the head as not to get any debris in the head.
This is the intake side, not too much material needs to be removed here. You can see the scribe marks of the gasket.
com/albums/s231/nicksgts/100_5248.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket">Here is the exhaust side, there is a considerable amount of material that needs to be removed on this side of the head
With the head ported to match the intake and exhaust manifolds the engine should breath considerably better maybe I even gained a few ponies. I also installed the new head gasket with a new MK4 metal style it should increase compression just a bit and add a couple horse power. The metal gasket was a no brainer since I needed to replace the old one anyway, its only a few dollars more than a standard OE gasket made from felt or paper.
Exhaust side
Intake side or front of the engine
Cleaned any build up from inside each cylinder
Next should be setting the timing....
