P&P stock plenum

[DrK MrK iV]

So I want to port and polish my plenum on my 04. I already have a 70mm throttlebody that is in there. I also have a dremel. Any guides out there? Thanks.

 

[Dark Knight GT]

I did an in-depth write up on this. Let me see if I can't dig it up for you and report back.

 

[Dark Knight GT]

Ok. I'm back and I found the thread. This thread is about how I ported and polished my throttle body but you can follow the same procedure for the upper intake.

Here's the link to the old thread.

http://forums.stangnet.com/showthread.php?t=376976

 

[DrK MrK iV]

Hey thanks alot!

 

[pony_vert02]

damn DK, that was some tight *****! are you serious about charging $40 to P&P the pair?

 

[DrK MrK iV]

So... You pretty much bored your 65mm tb to something larger?

 

[mdvaldosta]

Porting you stock plenum - I can see an improvement. But, porting the throttle body - I really don't see much, if any gain.

 

[Dark Knight GT]

damn DK, that was some tight *****! are you serious about charging $40 to P&P the pair?

Hahahaha, not I'm not. Seriously, its a PITA to do this job and it takes some serious time and effort. I doubt I'de ever do it for someone else unless if I could have a spare month to do both their throttle body and Plenum in cause of how long it takes to work on it. Although it would be a cool way to make some money.

So... You pretty much bored your 65mm tb to something larger?

Not really, I just more or less grinded down the surface, smoothed it out, and then polished her up. Polishing up the upper intake is quite a bit harder as you can't really manouver the dremel tool inside it so well.

Porting you stock plenum - I can see an improvement. But, porting the throttle body - I really don't see much, if any gain.

Well, since your porting the upper intake, might as well make it all flow as best as possible and port and polish the throttle body as well.

 

[DrK MrK iV]

Geez. I've been working on this thing for about an hour and a half. Great time to just work and let your mind drift.
Anyhow. How much of this stuff should I grind away? Am I making a difference with the work I have done? I need to get some more grinding bits tomorrow because I used up my one exsisting one.

 

[twogts4us]

OK, this is still rough, but I'm pretty much done with the interior and I've knocked down most of the roughness on the outside, I just need to go back and do a lot of fine sanding, and then polish...another month or so and it might be done. I've done some custom work on it as you can see. The horse is gone, the top is flat, the edges are rounded and smoothed. Two tons of work but it keeps me out of the bars and off the streets...!

 

[Dark Knight GT]

Geez. I've been working on this thing for about an hour and a half. Great time to just work and let your mind drift.
Anyhow. How much of this stuff should I grind away? Am I making a difference with the work I have done? I need to get some more grinding bits tomorrow because I used up my one exsisting one.

Any grinding you do makes a difference. Try to grind and port evenly though. Thats the key. You may need to get 3 different grits of sandpaper too. One really rough, one medium, and one fine. Work your way down in terms of roughness and grit. I found that works best.

When polishing, you should be using polishing compound. It's the stuff in that kit I talked about. I used some of this last night. I'm porting and polishing and 70mm FRPP throttle body and I'll tell you right now, its well on its way to looking great. When using the polishing compound, work the stuff until its almost gone. What I mean is, apply a thick coat of it and run the buffing pad over it over and over again until most of the compound is worked in. This helps to bring it to a shine. Also, starting out with firm pressure and slowly decreasing the pressure by hand works also.

 

[Dark Knight GT]

Twogts4us, looks good so far. Yeah, it is time consuming but it does keep you out of trouble and gives you something to do. Remember, its better to take your time with it than to rush it and not get a good job done.

 

[DrK MrK iV]

Thanks for the advice and great job twogt. The inside of mine looks similar to yours too. Im going to paint mine flat with some of the high-temp paint. Yea... And with the sand paper I was going to start with about an 80 grit and work my way up to about a 400 in 100 grit intervles. I wish I could work on it all today but I have to go to the dealership.
Looks like another antisocial night.

 

[Dark Knight GT]

Try using those different grits, but in reverse. Start out with the most harsh first then work your way down to the softest. This helps to bring it to a smooth flat finish.

 

[DrK MrK iV]

Opps, thats what I meant.
About how many hours you think of total work time should I do? I don't want to do too little.

 

[Dark Knight GT]

I don't think you want me to answer that question lol. Seriously, I've actually had my upper intake off my car 3 times now working on it. I got one more round to go at it before I'll be finished with it. Each time, it was off the car for multiple days and I worked at it for hours and hours. Seriously, its a very time consuming project. IMHO, just do as much as you feel you need to. The basic idea is to smooth down the inside so that all the walls are pretty much even and you want the surface to be smoother than it was when it was stock.

 

[Dark Knight GT]

Update

Just thought I'de let you guys know I went to the local Wal-Mart yesterday to buy myself and new Polishing kit and I came across some interesting head units for the dremel and they seem to work great.

Part Number: 511 - Two finishing abrasive pads.

I used these last night on the throttle body I was porting and polishing and they work great at helping to smooth things down. Makes the job quite a bit easier. Just thought I'de let you know.

 

[mdvaldosta]

Bah this thread motivated me to port and polish mine. Its not perfect but considerably better than stock - The inside is done completely but the outside will be polished more when I get a bigger throttle body to match. Total time was about 5 hours give or take a beer or two.

 

[twogts4us]

Bah this thread motivated me to port and polish mine. Its not perfect but considerably better than stock - The inside is done completely but the outside will be polished more when I get a bigger throttle body to match. Total time was about 5 hours give or take a beer or two.

Damn, that's awesome work - I've got some catching up to do.

 

[HIGDON]

LOL, this is great. I got the urge to do something on my car today so I went and ripped off the plenum. I ported it and made the top flat as well. I ended up spraying it in silver ceram-a-coat HTS paint. Then I just decided to read this. Nice work! It didn't take me very long because I brought the big guns with my air powered die grinder and some pretty mean bits. I finished it with some buffing pads from my standard abrasives kit. Now I think I should have just polished the outside too. . . .