I enjoyed the Saturday with my family, watched the grandkids compete in basketball tournaments, and had a great day. That day was better letting this thread rest.
Sunday, I shared time with my brothers and sisters on The Lord’s Day. Helped fix the lunch with another family and it was good. Served about 150 people Barbecued Meatballs, Cheezy Potatos and a salad. Everybody complimented the meal. Then I fixed my son's brakes on his Chevy and polished his headlights. A feeling of accomplishment and bonding.
And I agree, Nevada, I never started this as any chest thumping, but as a desire to get others to compare and hopefully show their pretty pictures, improve a knowledge that is generally felt an elusive, arcane and secretive art.
FUB: When a professional porter comes on my thread and the topic turns to pricing, you think I am in the wrong place? There is a name for taking over another person's thread with talk of sales. It's not right.
The kind of work it takes to turn out a porting job; it’s something I have to steel myself and grit my teeth. It’s hard work. It is not my favorite thing to do. Really, FUB, what is your real problem? You always come around me with a chip on your shoulder. And another points out a little bump in the workmanship. Jeez, what a guy. All I can say is, I keep up the attempt to improve.
I think the point of all this is that I am not trying to get ALL of the flow rate, but what I am doing, and by the way, so have you, FUB, is to attempt improvement to a very 'commercial' cylinder head. My effort was to get some quorum of opinion, but instead, I seem to attract the same 'prove it' mentality, trying to intimidate and undermine. It’s not like it grieves me what some of you think is wrong with my cylinder head work. If you have something to say to improve it, SHOW IT! PROVE IT YOURSELF! This is actually intended to be a self-help study, to dig into the problems, advantages and reality of porting for the TDI cylinder heads. I don’t need another TDI armchair quarterback telling me how I do it wrong.
I have been asked so many times how to port, where to port and what NOT to do. The information from some is helpful, but most do not get that, like you say Nevada, I'm not trying to exceed every top-rated porter's best effort. Even among themselves, the pros would argue. I don't mind allowing club members access to what is definitely working for my customers and if they have the gumption and an air tank to keep up with the grinder, give it a shot themselves.
The question: Is what I do without merit? I have compared porting with another well-known member who builds very aggressive TDI’s. We agreed in principle over most of what we were doing. He got himself in a ringer for 'giving away secrets' with a picture he posted years ago. I repost here showing the verticle bottleneck in the exhaust port of an ALH...
When you see the bottleneck as plainly as this, there is little argument that it is not beneficial to allow exhaust gasses be pinched in this manner. Opinions are stated, "pictures don't help or mean much." I disagree. The lines indicating the change are a very good improvement. As you can also see, there is plenty of room in the port to allow for this relief without getting into the water jacket. Some porting improvements are this obvious. This is not rationalization, but rationale.
Some claim what I am doing is mercenary, with an interest for procuring more porting. I think I'd rather give it away, as porting is very hard work and time-consuming, unless you own a Centroid or it's clone, and then it's just expensive.
My point is to bring some challenge to the Club. Controversial topics like cam design, porting, injector calibration, injection pump work, rod design, intake design, OIL, and soon, sputtered bearings are among the topics I have not been afraid to approach. I’ve spent thousands of dollars and countless hours tempting fate for any return and I get bullied for my efforts. Fine. The effort is good for the Club. Out of controversy and CIVIL discourse, benefit comes to all.
TDIMonster, thank you. I appreciate one of my customers speaking from their experience with me.