Over the years I have read hundreds of articles on porting and hundreds of personal comments on porting, what works what don't and a few times I have come across some successful Engine builders that claimed the small details like I pointed out don't add up to any real gains on the dyno maybe this cylinder was ported by someone with the same philosophy?

The areas where they modified was quality looking work, I will clean up the flaws either way like most of us here I am no expert but I do know you can see a difference when you run water over a casting flaw then remove the flaw and run water over it again, the eddy currents and turbulence is minimized or completely removed has to help flows when the Engine is at speed?

The only true test is to have a Dyno Machine, several runs, make a change, several more runs to get the true average results. IMHO Sure wish I could have access to one one for just such things. I used to line up with Feds 350 using drag racing to tune against, cheesy but you can do it.

IMO Your drag race method would be the perfect gauge of performance since it includes the whole package as it will be run in the real world.

It did work well tuning clutches! Now Fed is gone, I will have to use my son Garrett's and Elitespecialkid(Mark's) 350s to test with. i know they are chopping to get back to St Anthonys too. Mark wants to get another "Great Western Ride" together...whatcha got going this May/June?

YES DO IT!! ANOTHER GREAT WESTERN RIDE

I want to in the worse way that summer of the sixes ride out West was a EPIC ride trip, the way they are talking about gas prices for this summer I might be taking all my future trips with either LSD or using SKYPE

LOL Yup,with the expected fuel prices, and the bus gas mileage,might be cheaper to buy several dump trucks full of sand!

I actually am thinking about trenching out a 100' long double drag strip and filling it with some sand to play in with the trike. $5 a pickup load, several trips and might be fun. Good practice launching anyway!

I would love to do the St Anthony's dune trip but like everyone else, when gas hits 4 bucks plus a gallon 1400 mile round trips will probably out of the question. Probably looking at an 800 dollar fuel bill just for the motor (( Internal Combustion Engine ? )) home. And then there's the fuel for the week. Could prove to be pretty expensive.

Don't mean to rub it in but thank god sand mountain is only 90 miles away from me!

Rand

I need a online job (suggestions please) so I can spend more time living on BLM lands working right out of my RV then riding in my off hours The days of me driving back and forth out west are about to end with these gas prices.

If you find one let me know! I would be happy to do the same thing myself !LOL

Rand

Just sack up and move out here!

My brother lives in Surprise. Visited a couple of times in the summer when is was 116 degrees! OMG that's friggin hot!

Winters are nice though!

Rand

-14 this morning on the way to work, add the wind and I REALLY don't want to know.I am so ready for anything above 32 degrees. Think I will start a thread with some warm sand....

I was dreading filling up the GAS tank on the pickup truck... I had already decided to just take the Pickup, and throw the EEE in the pickup bed and drive to Arizona for the next whiplash Race... It's cheaper to get a room, than to drag the toyhauler out there unless I plan on staying for a few weeks... I need to hurry up and get a diesel pickup that can tow the RV and get 12+ mpg... it will cut my expense of fuel in half...

Put the 360 cylinder on TurboTexas bottom end using one OEM aluminum cylinder gasket, installed the piston with no rings.

When I took the rings off the piston found one ring was installed with the writing facing up and the other ring with the writing facing down, I was taught all rings the writing is to face UP

Piston is flush with the top of the cylinder

At BDC the top of the piston is flush with the bottom of the transfer ports

Whats the story, advantage, reason for installing the slot in the intake side of a otherwise standard piston for a FL350 Engine? If their is a advantage should we be doing this to all the FL350 engines? Time to call the Engine builder.

Checking the squish clearance of the "bad" head.

No head gasket was used, the top of the cylinder has O ring grooves assume they use no gasket.

Found .082 squish clearance need to call the Engine builder ask if this is per design.

Head can be machined to decrease the squish clearance and to increase compression need to know how many cc's they usually run with this setup, what would be really good is to have a sketch of the dome design so we know all the dimensions.

Installed the other head checked the squish clearance on it and found .068 squish clearance, again this is considered excessive by most standards but was it intentional and should be left that way? Need to ask Engine builder if we can.

I put the degree wheel on it to find the port timing.

Exhaust opens at 80 degrees
Exhaust closes at 275 degrees
Transfers open 114 degrees
Transfers close 242 degrees

Took a black marker and painted the heads then took them for a ride on the lapping plate, both are not flat.

Time to CC the heads.

The head that is marked "bad" was the low compression dome
Bowl was 26cc
Total head cc is 40.5
Squish width is .423
Bowl width is 2.373

The other head was
Bowl 20cc
Total head cc is 37cc
Squish width .609
Bowl width is 2.054

More

First bring the piston about to TDC (Top Dead Center) then put some grease around the outside edge of the piston.

Take your finger and smear it into the groove between the piston and cylinder, get some on the deck of the cylinder this will seal where the head gasket is.

This is a O ring setup if you normally run a head gasket then you need to include it or do the math to find out its volume.

Bring the piston up to TDC (Top Dead Center) then install the head and tighten it down, pour oil though the spark plug hole until its full to the bottom thread of the spark plug hole this is your compressed head volume.

As found for the "bad low compression head" was 26cc

As found for the other head was 23cc

Again piston TDC (Top Dead Center) this is the volume to the bottom of the spark plug hole.