Porting on LT1 Engines
 

Hello-


I am familiar with porting on old muscle cars, not so much with LT1 engines like found in my 2019 Camaro SS. I see no reason not believe that the principles are still the same. From reading the forums here porting seems to be an improvement.


Why did GM not port TBs, intake manifolds, heads (port and match)?



I have to think that porting any one of these components is better than no porting at all. Wouldn't you derive best result from porting and matching, or is that irrelevant these days?


Would close enough be good enough for general driving with some spirited track/autocross from time to time?


Thanks in advance!

Porting by someone who knows what they're doing will pay good dividends. Just hogging out stuff will kill flow and hurt drivability. Companies like Katech and Pray do nice work for sure.

Cost. Someone correct me if I'm wrong but I'm not aware of any manufacturer that ports any of the intake parts. I remember it being a selling point on some of the Kawasaki superbikes but probably not attainable in any sort of mass-produced situation without a ton of expensive UAW guys/gals doing it by hand.

You expect GM to port and match tens of thousands of engines?

:smiling1:

Porting is definitely still a thing a there are gains to be had.

That being said, the engineers at GM really upped their game when they came out with the LS1 and especially the LS6 on the C5 Z06 Corvette.

When the Gen 3/4 engines came out, the heads and intake manifold outflowed the best parts in the aftermarket of the Gen 1/2 smallblock. And it was a while before the aftermarket was able to equal let alone improve on the GM parts they were so good.

And that continues to this day with the LT1.

But it is definitely a cost thing and if porting, matching, etc. only gets you a few extra HP/TQ, its not worth the cost for GM.