Nice head Graham, looks good

I'd love to get my hands on one of the 5 axis machines they sell in the states specifically for cylinder head porting. The guy you've got doing the programing, do you know if he/she is using Mastercam? It's a pretty common CAM package in industry, and it was designed with head porting in mind, a lot of the preset toolpaths are apparently written for jobs like head porting. I don't think you can use it for gas flow simulation like Kirby is suggesting, some of the other CAD engineering packages that are designed for Injection Moulding have flow simulation in them for designing Runners, Gates and water jackets, you could likely do it on one of those.
Of course, the bad thing about porting one of these heads on a Cnc, is casting consistency and the fact that a lot of them have had water in them for the last 30 years rusting out the water jackets and reducing port wall thickness. When you're porting a head by hand, the second you break through into a water jacket you see and and can stop to weld it up. If you do it in Cnc and it breaks through, you won't know till the end of the program, by which stage all you might be left with is a big grey paper weight and an angry client.
Sure would be nice to have a spare $500k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWJAeEzqdc4Mokesta wrote:
dodge wrote:
soon u will be able to 3d print your own head
Can already! Monash uni has a laser sintering machine that can do 600x400x500mm prints in aluminium, titanium and other materials. I believe there is another machine from a different manufacturer in aus too.
The machines are destined for research into aircraft parts and medical implants but I'd love to do a weekend foreigner!
You would still need to machine to achieve surface finish but that's all.
https://platforms.monash.edu/mcam/index ... Itemid=195M
I've worked on some of the current ones that use acrylic etc. They're good, they're certainly useful for prototyping, but they are
EXTREEEEEEMEEELY slow. I wouldn't try and use one for production or to replace production CNC machining. They're great when you have to model something up to show a client or poke with your fingers. Like you said, surface finish is a big issue, and by the time you print something and then finish machine it, or polish it or whatever, it would be quicker to machine one up out of a soild block.
Still, it's great having an extra tool at your fingertips
