I am thinking about doing a baby 1/2 bridge on a 12a I will be rebuilding. The engine is healthy and has low mileage except for a failing coolant seal. I was going to keep it stock, then thought I would streetport it. However, i love the sound of a bridge yet wanna keep it streetable. So rather than a full eyebrow on the endplates, or a BDC 2/3 eyebrow I was thinking about just a 1/3 eyebrow along with a little bowl work in the ports. This is a fix & flip / or maybe keep project. I already have a fast FB, so this just has to be faster than stock yet have a little bit of a lump at idle. If I didn't have to do the coolant seal I wouldn't even bother porting, but it is hard to resist once it's apart. Intentions are to keep the car appearing completely stock except for exhaust and some engine porting. So popping the hood will produce a stock appearing engine, all cats will be gone yet it will preserve a dual tip muffler.



Thoughts????

 

my friend did a full bridge a long time ago. it was a J bridge, but he kept the port timing as sane as possible. so it opened later than a "normal" bridge and closed earlier.



he spent a LOT of time on the carb, but the car ended up being streetable (it actually was his daily for years) and it made 230rwhp AND did got 25mpg on the freeway



so spend some time with the degree wheel

 

I wouldn't bother with the stock intake setup. It doesn't really allow enough airflow for a stock engine, let alone a ported one. Any engine with significant overlap will not tolerate a restrictive intake or a restrictive exhaust.



That said, properly supported, a BDC half bridge is a joy to drive. Very good streetability and power.

 

i would go with a streetport. that brap,brap,brap your looking for,(bridgeport) needs to be supplied with the proper intake/exhaust toys to make it happy. keep it simple. streetport and keep it moving.

 

this reply reminds me of my stock Rx3 intake manifold and nikki carb on my partial bridgeport(I ran streetport primaries and bridgeport secondaries) 12A a long time ago. I went ahead and modified my nikki so well(took some trial and error) that my 12A was pretty insane back in 1992 I use to have tons of local drag races and many a times my little 12A was crossing the finish line first. I did get to run 12.96@105 all motor with my 12A and this was my daily driven car. my stock rx3 lower intake manifold was port matched and man I loved that set up. I was a mad man with that carb... fuel bowls modified, jetting, secondary venturi gone.. metal fuel line gone and -an fittings installed, no return fuel line. mechanical secondaries and so on and so on.. I later installed a larger carb. with a racing beat lower intake manifold and improved to a solid 12.77@105 I use to drive the car to the track, put my MH racemaster slicks and hope i didn't destroy my NA tranny with my 10,000rpm launches!!!! If I didn't destroy my gearbox i would land a 12 second run through the muffler. Racing Beat Muffler was always exclusive on my cars.

 

on the topic, i can't really say anything from experience. all i will say is it sounds to me like when it all comes down to it, you're porting just for the bridgeport sound - and that's probably not going to work favorably for you in the long run. streetport it and let it be.



posts like this take me back to simpler times and sort of makes me wish i had spent more time across the bridge. as usual, i tip my hat to you once again, Judge Ito.

 

Some people have to learn the fun way



We get that all the time in camshaft sizing. (I work in a boinger related field) People get the cam on the bottom of the page because they want to sound badass at cruiseins and in traffic. What they don't really get until they experience it for themselves is that the engines sound like that because they're basically choking on themselves and are barely running until you get enough throttle in them. At that point, they are pissed off that they can't idle the car in 4th gear through the parking lot and then smoothly take off like when they had a mild cam. The people with hot cams aren't coasting and clearing the plugs out all the time because it sounds cool, they're doing it because that's what you have to do when you're trying to drive a race engine like it's a Maxima.



That got long winded.



Bridge ports and peripheral ports can be quite drivable! But the things you do to make them drivable, will make them not sound as awesome anymore. Mine idles smoothly at 800rpm. It only has the characteristic brap-brap-brap when coasting in gear, just like a street port or even a stock port. Well, not JUST like.