Porting the Front Manifold

[TeeWX]

Since I have all the tools necessary (Die Grinder, Air Compressor, Bits, etc) I was looking at porting my front manifold since it would basically be free. I have heard that it is poorly casted from factory and doesn't match the head ports very well. Truth on that? I have yet to remove my manifold and check this. Has anyone ever done this? What all would I want to do with it while off the car? I was thinking just a basic port match/gasket match, whatever you want to call it. Also does anyone know if our factory gaskets are re-useable? Thanks.

[TheOtherNick]

You can reuse the factory gasket.

[superv6]

Honestly I'm not sure about this. A lot of the reason why the front manifold is cast like crap is because of the way the tubes clash into each other causing turbulance. The powerlog or plog is ALMOST a header of sorts with individual runners into a much bigger than stock tube. I don't see why port matching could be a bad thing, just don't know if it would be benificial enough. If ur gonna do it u might look into a plog as well

[blueguy]

It's free...I did it...better than the stock manifold if your broke

[Liquifire]

It's free...I did it...better than the stock manifold if your broke

as stated above.........this is better than stock and free if you have the tools......if you have the money to get a plog, do that........if you have the money for headers then this is the most efficient way to go. The stock front manifold is restrictive in the ways stated above in its poor design of the runners into the collector area...........fwiw

[Bio248]

porting the front manifold without adding a little material to the outside (welding some extra slag onto it) so you can make the ports bigger and round like they were meant to be is pretty much a waste of time.

weld some extra around the flange on the outside of the manifold, then port it.

[minichopper6hp]

The runners are not the problem. If you have stock heads you will be wasting your time. The problem is in the collector area, its very small on the inside. The only way to port this out is to hack the thing in half, port it, weld it back together. Not worth it, and then it could crack cause its cast. The price of the powerlog is probably worth your time, but if you want to do it just cause, go for it.