i've spent the last week of evenings pooling over endless-ENDLESS-combonations of porting setups
can someone ppbbbblease tell me what would give me the best balance of pony gain and torque loss?

 

Which engine? 12A,13B? What type of intake? Carb? EFI? What is the car going to be primarily used for? Road racing, autocross,drag racing, street use? Do you have a turbo? Want one?

You can not gain horsepower without gaining torque. It is a mathematical relation between the two. You may gain torque overall but just shift it higher in the power band. You may lose low end torque in which case you will also lose low end horsepower but both will be increased higher up where you need it to be.

Too big of a port will require too high of an rpm range to be of any use. Far too many people make the mistake of bigger is better when it comes to porting. What good is an engine that makes most power at 11000 rpm if it will self destruct at 10000? Also you need to remember that your transmission is designed around a certain rpm range. To be truly fast you need to have an engine thats power band matches. If you are trying to design around what you currently have, stay realistic. If you have a stock Nikki carb 12A and expect 250 horsepower, you won't get it. You can however get 200 fwhp and still be very street drivable. Even if you have an engine with ports that can flow good, does your intake and exhaust flow as good? There are many variables that need to be taken into account when you design an engine. You need to figure out what your goals, what you have, what you intend to upgraden and then figure out porting accordingly. You'll find that this approach is going to be far more successful and faster than just figuring out how to make a monster, godzilla sized port.

 

just go with a street port. Its the best out of all worlds.