I purchased the 50 count box of cross buffs in fine for $180 and a box of 25 count mediums for $115. The more quantity you buy the cheaper it is. The Standard Abrasives porting kit ran me $40 years ago and just the small box of cartridge rolls was $30. Last year I purchased a box of Merritt 3" flap wheels 40 count for $220 that I use for cleaning and opening the inlet side of superchargers and works awesome.
I got close to $1200 in product and tools ie. Snap-On grinders, Ingersol Rand grinders and Porting bits, long shank & short shank then a seperate set of long shank porting bits for aluminum with bigger flutes, but the nice thing being a tech I buy this for work and personal use and write it all off on my taxes at the end of the year since it's tools
yeah they are still ****ing expensive. i have way too much into this stuff as is, the makita and pencil grinders, carbides and cartridge rolls with the belt sander are about all i use anymore. i see far more to gain from cleanup and blending and radiusing the valves and spending the time polishing to fix the oil windage issue which is a far more pressing concern for us as the cyl 4 oil ring hates the oem setup
I usually don't polish the CC's because the air comes to a stop in the cylinder and takes off again when the exhaust valve opens. A little traction, a good valve job & short turn radius can make a lot of velocity.
i dont polish em but i still knock down all the cast to machining transitions around the seats. i hit the ridgeback with a hone stone to break the sharp edge and radius the ends...
the air doesnt come to a stop, the air tumbles/falls all over itself. the air actually moves quite fast past the chamber surface as the valves open.
the biggest gains in these heads with a high angularity rotating geometry (high piston acceleration/decel rates at TDC/BDC) is increasing the low/mid lift flow.
to that degree i cleanup the chamber but yeah i usually dont polish it... the time is much better spent unshrouding the valves.
the seat wall, seat to cast transitions, knock down the common skijump at the chamber to quench area, as well as a common casting defect near the plug boss and the chamber walls next to the valves
i do go to a high luster on the exhaust side, but thats for polishings primary benefit of reducing carbon buildup
the downturn sucked for machine shops...but i was able to give some vintage iron a good home
its no where near as clean anymore...but this bugger is far more useful than the seat grinder (the souix is in its case under alot of my lathe and morse tooling lol)
our seats are always beautiful...its the valves that pit
