Who the best in head mods?

[OldSchoolin86]

I don't mind doing some mild porting and polishing my own cylinder heads but if I wanted to send one out, who is the best in the buisness? We're talking over sized valves, pro porting and polishing on a 400ex. Is Trinity good? Who would you use? Who is the best?

[Billy Golightly]

Personally I would use either Curtis Sparks or Micky Dunlap. Both have been in the business since the trike days and know their 4 strokes very well. I've heard Trinity does good work, but takes forever. Same story with CT Racing. Personally if it takes 6 months I don't care how good the job is heh.

[OldSchoolin86]

Thanks HondaATC. I called Sparks and they are not taking motors now and said maybe in a couple of months. That's not a big problem though, I can wait for quality work. They want $450 to do the head(porting and valve job). I used to have contact info for Micky but can't find it now. I did a search for him and 4-stroke tech with no luck. Do you have a link or a number?

Thanks!

[Billy Golightly]

Mickey Dunlap's
Four Stroke Tech
460 Hogback Road
Hyndman, PA 15545
Phone: 814-842-6159
Fax: 814-842-9221
www.fourstroketech.com

[3WheelsForever]

Id go with Mickey Dunlap, Eric Gorr, or Tom Carlson. Ive heard TC is really good at four strokes as well as Mickey Dunlap. I mentioned Eric Gorr because of his prices. He is supposed to be perty high quality at porting also. I think im going to send him my yz 250 cylinder for mx porting, head mods and 265 big bore kit.

[BigGreenMachine]

CT's quality was great when they did my Tecate, both cylinders sleeved and the ports matched and cleaned up. Took about a year though. Have never dealt with the others but I'd go with Mickey Dunlap.

Anyone see that Warrior that 4stroke tech did, used a Kodiak cylinder bored to a 500, said it left Banshee's behind.

[Billy Golightly]

Yeah I never even thought of Tom Carlson...definetly dont rule him out.

[BP]

If you want any work on a 400ex or honda 4 stroke engine I would say TC racing is one of the best. Go to his website at TC racing and then give him a call. He use to race the old 350x trikes in the day and has been building engines for ever. In Quad racing now he has his engines on some of the fastest Quads. i have my 350x engine with him right now, he told me it should take about 4-5 weeks.

He built many of the 400ex motors, through the years. He's a nice guy, call him.

BP

[OldSchoolin86]

Thanks guys! I've been reading the samething here and at exriders, TC is where to go. I'm going to call them and see what we can do. The suprising thing is that after all the reasearch I've been doing I found that the 400ex doesn't benifit from head mods unless your really taking it to the max. I read a Q&A with M. Dunlap and here is what he said:


The 400EX on the other hand has very little gain in power from doing a mild port job with standard valves on a 416 motor or smaller. You won't see a difference until you get into a 440 engine or bigger going to a big valve head on this one. For most trail riders, the stock head will work fine. If you run in the higher RPM's and have a bigger carberator then the big valve head will benefit greatly.

I'm just doing a 11:1 426 with a stage 1 hotcam and if budget alows it a 39mm flat slide. I'm building more of a woods machine so I don't want all the power on the top end. I think I'll call both TC and Dunlap to see what they think about what I want to do.

Thanks guys

[BP]

I spoke to Tom about the same thing. My 350X is for the woods and some hill climbing. he told me that we were going with a 415 and a different cam. I ask about the head and he said that besides refreshing it, he would let it where it is. He said the heads work better stock with my set up and the only way he would change it is if I was building a racer. He assured me that i would be satisfied with the engine when it came back. He told me that with a racing build up along comes the working on it.

He told me that the heads flow pretty good stock and changing them would not do a thing. He said if i want more power we will do most of it from the outside, like a cdi box, carburator, and a decent pipe. I told him I had a Cobra on it and he said that the stock pipe most likly works as good as the cobra. He said if I want to make more noise stay with the Cobra. He said if i brought the bke after it is done, he could make a pipe for it, that would make a difference. But most after market pipes dont seem to help the 350x X much if any at all.

This guy has a long career with these engines and can explain why you should or not do this and that.

BP