I am looking into a few engines, and it'* not that mine is bad or anything. I'm sure my compression is not stock, but it feels pretty good. I haven't done a compression test, but it'* coming soon.

Basically, if I get another engine, hopefully one that'* so bad that I can get it pretty cheap, I would like to port the heads, TB, etc. What would be pretty easy to port and polish that I can do in about a day? I'll probably give whatever I have to a shop and do a quick swap. I may do an all-out top end rebuild, in fact, and mainly I'm interested in the effects of porting and how easy it is to swap engine parts like I plan to do.

If your timeframe is a day. Clean the gasket surfaces and put it back together. That'* about a days worth of work. Honestly. Porting and polishing when done properly takes forever unless you are in mass production. You want perfect or the closest thing you can get to it whenever porting/polishing.

I spent about 3 days on EACH cylinder head, and that didn't include hand-lapping the valves or porting the LIM to match.

Follow Bill'* advice above, and add to that:

Check your compression before buying a motor.

If you are like most of us & work on your car 1 or 2 hours a day after you get home from work, with your "electric" home tools... Then is a couple of weeks.

I have an air compressor and spend days at a time. I'm self employed with site design and hosting, and I'm starting up a phone company(easier than you'd imagine). Perfect for car work, IMO. But what if a shop ports these for me? I know a place that'll bore out my engine block for a fairly low cost, and I've heard they're good at porting.

Also, I would love to do a compression test and tell you guys all about it. It'* been about 110K miles since the last rebuild, so the engine should be fairly even. I don't believe they ported anything during the builds, so that leaves all the more improvement to be done by me and/or a shop guy.

It would seem that the true question is how long can you be without your car?

Figure a day to pull down the motor if you are driven and keep at it. Another day for reassembly. (Assuming no rings or piston work). Then machine shop time. Depending on how they do the work, that will vary the time.

What if I get another engine, complete instead of just the top end, and do a whole lot of stuff to it? I could then swap the engines and make sure it all works. If not, though it would be horrifyingly annoying, I would put back in my "backup."

It appears you have possibile ways around the time frame issues.

Yes, but it'* terrible not to sleep. Can this be done at a meet if I'm insane enough?

It'* also a matter of does anyone at a meet have enough knowledge of the Series 1 to do this with you. I can't think of anyone around here that could except willwren, or possibly if you went out east someone around the Enfield Bonne compound may be able to.