GASKET PORTING

One project that I undertook this past winter while I had the engine torn down, was to gasket port the plenum, throttle body, and the intake manifold. Gasket porting involves removing all material that shows past the gasket. Since you'll probably chew up the gasket, I would recommend using an old one.

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Here we see the plenum where it attaches to the intake manifold. You can see all of the metal that show past the gasket. I started out with a course grinding stone attached to my die grinder. An electric drill can also be used. Be careful not to remove too much metal with the grinding stone. After the stone, I used sanding tubes of varying grits until a smooth surface was achieved.

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Now you can see that all of the excess metal has been removed and the intake has been polished for smooth air flow. When the plenum matches up with the intake manifold, which was also ported using the same gasket, the maximum amount of air flow will be achieved.

Since the throttle body was previously enlarged, I first carefully ground away any gasket that was intruding with the airflow from the throttle body. Then I used the enlarged gasket to port the intake portion of the plenum that attached to the throttle body.