Cylinder Head Porting

[dturner40]

Anybody know of a tutorial that covers the steps required for getting tool path for porting a cylinder head? We have been using an old software package that has worked great over the years for our 5-axis CAM, but I want to explore using NX5 or 6 for doing this. We use NX5 for a lot of our design work and 3-axis milling. I want to begin migrating our 5-axis simultaneous cylinder head porting over to NX.

Anybody that has seen a tutorial, book, or has an example that covers this area, I would greatly appreciate the help in getting pointed in the right direction.

 

[joycejo]

Can you post an image or file of what your trying to do?


John Joyce
Tata Technologies iKS
1675 Larimer St.
Denver, CO

http://www.myigetit.com

 

[larrylcoyle]

dturner,

Did you ever get the answer you were looking for? There is a pretty cool way to do this in NX but you will not find it in a book. I have been doing it since NX3 and I am now still on NX4. I take it you want to spiral down through the port?

Let me know if you are still interested,

Larry Coyle
Cylinder Head Engineering, LLC

 

[pacific123]

Larry,
I'd love to hear your tricks for this kind of job. I was asked to do something similar a few months back but didn't know how to proceed.

 

[dturner40]

I am still looking for an answer. I was never able to mess with this much and it got put on the back burner. If you could provide any tips for getting started it would be greatly appreciated. A spiral cut through the port is good. We do mainly V8 Dodges and Fords so it is pretty standard port designs. Nothing real crazy.

I am using NX5 and have the NX6 update installed but haven't used it at all yet.

 

[larrylcoyle]

Well, CNC porting with UG involves a little more than a few tips and it is so hard to communicate everything through what little space you have here.

Are you also aware there is a vertical market software package out there that is for nothing but machining ports? I personally prefer UG because it works much better with the machining center that I have. My machine has what they call a nutating head and it is a little more complicated to program. This is the main reason I use UG plus the fact that you have so much more tool control.

You say that you are doing the Dodge and Ford cylinder heads. Are you doing them directly from a previous design or reverse engineering the ports? What type of tool are you using or what type of tool are you wanting to use? I realize that some of the info is probably sensitive but in order to show you some things I will need a sample port. One thing.. my web site is down right now but hopefully you get the drift of things.

Larry Coyle
Cylinder Head Engineering, LLC
9853 S Bur Oak Circle
De Soto, KS 66018

http://www.cylinderheadengineering.com

 

[larrylcoyle]

pacific123,

Exactly what is it that you were asked to do or what is it that you are wanting to do? I don't know that there are any tricks but more like a lot of hard work trying to figure out what you want the end result to be and then mapping out how to get there.

First off, I would recommend you start with a 5-axis vertical cnc but you can do this with a horizontal. I have no experience with a horizontal though. At the very least you will need a three axis with a two-axis rotary table. Either way you will need some type of fixture to hold the cylinder head for the actual machining process. This is not for the feint of heart so you need to decide how much effort you are willing to spend on a project such as this. If this is just a one-off deal, I personally wouldn't recommend it because it would not be cost effective. You will need a different plate for each type of cylinder head to bolt up to your fixture. Granted this isn't the only way to do this but this is probably the most common method.

Let me know how you want to proceed with this.

Larry

 

[pacific123]

Larry,

What I was asked to do was a porting job for a racing dirt bike (1 cylinder bike) but I ended recommending my boss not to do it since there was only 2 or 3 cylinders to do. It would have been quite the undertaking to make the fixture for it, as you pointed out.

I was more curious than anything when I saw your post.

I will keep you in mind though if I have a similar request in the future.
Thank you for your interest.

Steve

 

[larrylcoyle]

pacific123,

You definitely made the right decision in this case. Sometimes we have a tendency to let our pride get in the way and take on something when we have this little birdy sitting on our shoulder whispering into our ear...

"Now why are you doing this when you know that it is going to eat your lunch and you are going to go in the hole and not make any money. And on top of that you are going to make some of your other customers mad because you are working on something you have no business working on when you could be working on something where you could actually make some money."

Now if that sounds like the voice of experience (and I do mean direct experience) then guess what... it is. This describes me and probably many others on this forum at one time or another.

Let me know when you have another project come up and you need some direction.

Larry