Myself I do not like to go into the plating. From what I have been told by a number of people it is not as bad to cut into the nickle as it would be for the chrome as the chrome is much harder and would tend to flake off easier once it's been cut. Can't verify that though.

I haveseen some mods on different engines where the builder has cut right into the chrome and enlarged or widened the ports. Still not ready to do that myself. One builder told me that he uses a fine diamond burr on low speed to open the ports and then he used diamond files to ease the edge with a very small chamfer. Again I can't confirm how this works as I don't have the guts to do it.

Theoretically if you had 2 similarly constructed engines and one was a high end one you could clone the prting onto the lower end mill and get the same performance as the other. Never tried it though. I'm of the mind that it's bette to make the most of what you have and keep it working than to kill what was working fine. IF you have a p\s that is almost done it might not be a bad idea to try to work the ports a little wider. If you do kill the sleeve it won't hurt too bad that way.

I have a Rex 12 that I have thought about copying the timing and ports onto a CV and I do have a few of these lying around with some spare parts so it may make for a good project even if it doesn't work out the way I hope. I also wonder if the materials used in the CV's are able to take the stresses of running that much harder. Doublign the hp to over 1hp might not sound like much but if the engine is only engineered for a max of .75hp than you could be in for soem interesting trouble.

Enjoymentboy