Working on the cylinders

I started working on the cylinders. I have painted the top aluminum heads silver. I used the 3M cup system to spray the cylinders so that I could paint upside down. It worked ok but the paint came out in blotches. I had to take a brush and brush out the heavy spots. I thinned the paint down with reducer but it was not enough. It says 20% but it should be more like 30% and use a fast reducer.
After the top was painted I started on the bottom. Having problems with the top I had the local paint shop put some of my enamel in a spray can. They take my paint and put it in a spray can. It already has the solvents in it and it makes clean up a snap. I masked off the top and the lower portions so paint would not get on then and then took the cylinders outside and spray each one individually. They came out nice.
Next I am doing some grinding on the intake and exhaust ports. I have taken pictures of the sand casting in the ports and some of it is pretty rough. I have gotten cylinders from Ly-Con before and there porting is a work of art. They also produce the power as well. I just wanted to grind out imperfections and blend it all smooth. I could not reach all of the areas as you have to have some special grinding wheels to get in all of tight spots. I got about 80% of each port. I also had to be careful not to grind the seat for the valves. That would be very very bad. After I ground each cylinder I would clean it up and then lap the valves to the seats.
I talked with Ken Tunnel once about porting cylinders. He said all of his dyno testing indicated that the Lycoming cylinder worked out the best for porting. It always made more power. He has done Superior and ECI and indicated they never made the same power as Lycoming. I was in the shop one day getting my cylinders and he had a set ready to go for Sean Tucker for his Oracle bi-plane. They were Lycoming. Not saying ECI is bad, but something about there port design does not let the air flow the same. Call it BS but he has hard dyno testing to prove it. My cylinders with all of the mods to the engine should get me over 190 hp. If it puts out 195 with the 4-1 exhaust and the ram air cowling, I would be really happy.
I read up on lapping valves and there is not much too it. I purchased all of the items to lap valves at the local auto shop for about 20 bucks. You get some fine lapping compound, a lapping tool which is two suction cups on a stick, and a buncn of rags. I used some hose and extended the lapping tool so that it would stick up out of the cylinder a ways.
The valves in the cylinder cannot be mixed up. One is big (intake) and one is small (exhaust). I installed one on the end of the lapping tool, put compound on the seat of the valve , greased the stem and then installed it in the cylinder. I then set the cylinder up on the bench (inverted) let it lean against my chest. I then would spin the lapping tool back and forth like you are trying to start a fire. You need to hold a little down pressure as well. You can hear the valve lapping as it grinds. The grinding will start to go away and you will hear more of a smearing noise (you can feel it as well). This tells you that the valve is lapped and it completely seated in the valve seat. Take the valve out and clean it all up. Clean the seat as well. I then marked the cylinder a color and the both valve went into a valve box that was also marked the same color. This system will keep me from mixing up vavles cylinder to cylinder. Also when you look at the valves, you can see a slight graying of the valve where it hit the seat. The lapping compound it black and this help dye the area as it is ground down.
I purchased a Lycoming valve spring compressor from US Tools for 60 bucks. When I get that I will start putting the cylinders together for good and mounting them on the lower half of the engine.