I don't know if anybody has done this before and has documented it on this forum; I didn't bother to search this time. I've got MANY, MANY small projects like this that I need to complete before my SE 6-port 13b swap and a few other smaller but more important projects/parts that I need to finish before my car gets painted and driven again...

I already have Pineapple Racing's 6-port inserts installed in these sleeves; I know that some people say they don't help and they're worthless, but I'm sure they'll do more good than harm when the sleeves are installed and the engine is running...BTW-PR recommemds dimpling the openings where the sleeve meets the insert to retain them during engine operaton. I'm not going to add unnecessary turbulence to my auxillary port system that way so I've held them in place with a thin amount of good epoxy for the current time and will eventually drill, countersink, and tap through the sleeve into the insert to retain them with a very short flush bolt and loctite.

The better flow I mentioned in the title is the project that I'm bringing up here and really has nothing to do with the inserts. I've got pics of both auxillary port sleeves with inserts installed at the bottom of this post as attachments. Look at the openings of the sleeves and you'll notice the difference: the stock sleeve is on the right and the modified sleeve on the left.

The size of the opening in the insert hasn't changed, just the thickness of the lip and the angle at which it starts. The corners and the thick section of the lip (on the bottom and in the middle of the sleeve in the first pic) have more of a radius than a straight angle to them although you may not be able to tell from the pics.

I'm still not finished with the sleeve on the left; I need to finish the opening with sandpaper and ensure all the lips are consistent on each side, polish the outside of the sleeves (I believe they'll rotate in the housings easier this way and give me less trouble/maintennance in the long run), and I'm going to angle/radius the air inlet of the sleeves also (I know there's a round rod in there that allows the actuator to rotate the sleeve, but I'm not going to mess with that; I'll just remove material from the inside of the opening as I've done for the one in the pics below and possibly modify the radius on the small end of the rod to match the increased size of the opening-I'll post pics once I've done it to help you understand what I mean). I should end up with razor-sharp lip and air inlet edges with a gradual slope to the cast OEM inner shape...

So what do you guys think? Do you think this modification will be worth the time invested to perform it (maybe about 40+ minutes per sleeve by the time they're completely finished and retained with the flush bolt)? It may still be a long time before the 13b that these sleeves are going into will be ready to run, but I'll make sure to post dyno results from at least one of the tuning sessions (these sleeves are not the only mods to this engine, though, so the results won't be from these modifications alone)...Hmmmm-I wonder if the 6-port 12a uses the same sleeves...

 

Hmm...

 

The actuator rods are actually what kills the flow through the upper port runners and hence anything done to them to "improve flow". Without them in place there are more gains possible but as long as they are still there I'm going to go out on a limb and say you aren't gaining anything. You are thinking though and that's a good thing.