Valve seat cutting

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I've always thought when you freshen up a race motor on the cheap cutting seats further than you should and powers not as sharp as the first time that other than compression is down slightly the low lift flow might be the issue. You always read that a good valve job is one of the best things a motor can have
You may lose some compression by sinking the valves but as long as you keep the geometry of the seat and top cut correct then you will not reduce the flow. [at least you won't with a Norton head]
It is often necessary to sink the valves in a hemi head to get enough valve to valve clearance for a performance cam, then you get the compression back with a surface cut. Jim
 
Thanks Jim for the latest test results in video form. Appreciate your time & input for the benefit of the forum.
Regards Mike
 
You may lose some compression by sinking the valves but as long as you keep the geometry of the seat and top cut correct then you will not reduce the flow. [at least you won't with a Norton head]
It is often necessary to sink the valves in a hemi head to get enough valve to valve clearance for a performance cam, then you get the compression back with a surface cut. Jim
Welcome back Jim.
What are the 3 angles and the order of cutting them?

Thanks,
Ed
 
Is there anything to radiused valve seats? I read the smooth transition flows better than the abrupt differences between the 3 cuts.
 
Is there anything to radiused valve seats? I read the smooth transition flows better than the abrupt differences between the 3 cuts.
A full radius on the chamber side of the 45 is good but a sharp angle from the bowl to the 45 seems to work best.
 
Could differences between the two heads' porting be contributing to the difference? Ideally, you'd need to show the flow before/after seat cutting differences on the same port I'd guess.
Well that would be a perfect way to do it but actually the low lift flow is not going to be affected much by small differences that might exist between two rh10 heads so I think the results are pretty accurate.
But I am installing new seats in the head with the 15 degree top cut so I can do a comparison here later this week.
Comnoz addressed the question Tornado posed above, I agree with his response, and look forward to seeing his further airflow testing later this week. I happen to have some data congruent with Comnoz’ response that I thought readers might find interesting, where a large port and small port head were flowed over a range of valve lift. In this case the heads happen to be air-cooled vintage Porsche heads, but the same airflow trend would result with any similar head set.

Airflow tests on a flowbench are essentially controlled by valve lift, i.e., the further valve is opened the higher the airflow, up to a point. Valve lift is often specified in terms of the ratio of valve lift to valve dia, or the so-called L/D ratio, where lift is commonly increased in increments of 5%, i.e., 5, 10, 15% of valve dia, etc. Measuring airflow at such L/D ratios affords a means of easily comparing the discharge coefficient of various sized valves. It is generally accepted that airflow at the first 3 lift points (5, 10, 15%) is primarily controlled by the valve and seat, since airflow is restricted and relatively low velocity in the port at these lift points and the port is far from being the primary factor limiting airflow.

Below are images of the 2 port castings, where the small 34 mm port is shown on the left and the 41 mm port is shown on the right. Both heads have a 49 mm IN valve, identical throat size and valve job, and were fit identically (throttle body and velocity stack) for flow testing. Valve lift was increased in L/D increments of 5% as described above. The airflow results are presented graphically below and show that in spite of the heads having dramatically different sized ports, airflow at the first 3 lift points is identical, as one would expect in light of the above discussion, and thereafter as valve lift increases further and port velocity increases, the larger port head begins outflowing the smaller port head.
Valve seat cutting
Valve seat cutting
 
It might be a mistake to think of gas flow only in terms of cylinder filling. At TDC when the valves are open, there is flow across the top of the combustion chamber into the exhaust pipe which causes resonance in the exhaust system. Some of the mixture which goes into the header pipe probably gets shoved back into the cylinder - Kadency effect. The timing of the exhaust valve opening point probably determines how strong the effect is. Why do MotoGP bikes run Exup ? - Do you believe that bullshit about changing the volume of the exhaust pipe ? You cannot run that valve timing without doing something about the noise.
One of the things I have done with my motor is use skinny header pipes on my exhaust system and made sure there is no step or quick changes in diameter where the pipes fit the to the cylinder head. I have fitted stubs in my exhaust ports, and I hold the pipes on with springs and slip joints.
 
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It might be a mistake to think of gas flow only in terms of cylinder filling. At TDC when the valves are open, there is flow across the top of the combustion chamber into the exhaust pipe which causes resonance in the exhaust system. Some of the mixture which goes into the header pipe probably gets shoved back into the cylinder - Kadency effect. The timing of the exhaust valve opening point probably determines how strong the effect is. Why do MotoGP bikes run Exup ? - Do you believe that bullshit about changing the volume of the exhaust pipe ? You cannot run that valve timing without doing something about the noise.
One of the things I have done with my motor is use skinny header pipes on my exhaust system and made sure there is no step or quick changes in diameter where the pipes fit the to the cylinder head. I have fitted stubs in my exhaust ports, and I hold the pipes on with springs and slip joints.

If your exhaust is tuned to produce a high strenth wave at the correct time to boost the power at a certain RPM then that same wave is going to put a hole in the power just below that certain RPM.
Exup is used to dampen the strength of the returning wave by changing the volume of the exhaust system at the RPMs that would have produced hole in the powerband if Exup was not there.
 
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