How much of a gain from porting PI heads?

[98blackstallion]

How much of a gain would you see if you ported a set of PI's? I am gonna do the head swap on my 98 and I was just wondering how much that should cost to have them ported and how much more HP it will produce? I also need to know which cams to run, I was thinking about the VT stage 2 with spring upgrade but because I dont have a dyno with in hours of here can I just use a SCT Xcalibrator to set my tune? OR should I stay with the VT stage 1's because down the road I think I might supercharger it. If you guys can help I would appreciate it. THanks

 

[stonegod85]

i was thinkin of porting my pi heads when they came in, but i discussed it with my friend who was going to help me build up my 4.6 2V and he said that the heads you purchase today (especially performance based heads) are not worth the time or money to port them because they pretty much come as clean and clear as they are gonna be from the factory off the CNC machines. so basically he believes that the improvements will be next to none (maybe a little bit of increase on the dyno, but hardly any improvements will be "felt") so its not worth the money.

but i would like to see for my self the #'s of a pi setup unported and one ported....if any can supply those sheets.

 

[CanadaStang]

i was thinkin of porting my pi heads when they came in, but i discussed it with my friend who was going to help me build up my 4.6 2V and he said that the heads you purchase today (especially performance based heads) are not worth the time or money to port them because they pretty much come as clean and clear as they are gonna be from the factory off the CNC machines. so basically he believes that the improvements will be next to none (maybe a little bit of increase on the dyno, but hardly any improvements will be "felt") so its not worth the money.

but i would like to see for my self the #'s of a pi setup unported and one ported....if any can supply those sheets.

While the design of the newer heads are much improved the rough casting is still as bad as the old heads. The ported heads will yeild a much larger hp gain than stock when hotter cams are used.

 

[UNVMATT]

Fox lake claims 150hp from changing to their stage 2 ported heads, stage 2 cams, and valvetrain upgrade.
I think its exaggerated, but porting heads gains much more hp with non-stock cams.

Ive heard of people gaining 40-50hp with stage 2 porting, and cams.