In our second installment of our H22 to Civic project, we quite simply ran out of room when it came time to get into the head work done on the car. But, that's why Al Gore invented the Internet.
We sent our head to DPR East in Toledo, Ohio for the head job. The first step was soaking it in cleaning solution. This wasn't a high-mileage engine, but after several thousand miles, oil inevitably bakes itself onto the aluminum. It takes time to clean it up to the point where one can even see what needs to be done. Once clean, it was obvious that the head was in pretty good shape overall. However, this wasn't to be an extreme head build up. Instead the technicians at DPR East decided that the best thing to do was a pocket-port job, basically cleaning up the rough edges in the ports, smoothing them out, and removing any possible areas for hotspots in the combustion chamber. A lot more could be done, of course. Bigger intake and exhaust ports, reshaped ports, reconfigured combustion chambers with more quench area...the list goes on and on.
But make no mistake. Just because the ambitions on this particular head job are not quite as high as those for a race head, there's still plenty of work to do. And all of it is done by hand. Head porting is art as much as science, and experience counts as much as machinery. In other words, it's much more than just taking a grinder to aluminum. Let the pros handle this.
The ports are colored blue with a Sharpie, and the intake manifold gasket is laid over the ports. The outline of the gasket is then scribed onto the head itself. The same thing is done with the intake manifold itself. This is how ports are matched. Note the scribe line here, and how much metal is between it and the edge of the port. All of this material will be removed, eliminating a serious impediment to good airflow. | 
With the head scribed, it's time to grind. It takes a sharp eye to know when to stop. And ear and eye protection to keep the hazard level down. | 
The finished port, polished and ready. There are several stages to the grinding and polishing process, and like most head shops, DPR's exact procedure is a closely guarded secret. But it sure does look pretty. |
A similar procedure is done on the exhaust ports, with similar results. Exhaust flow is not as critical as intake flow, but it's still important to smooth out the rough edges. | 
The combustion chamber doesn't escape the grinder either. Note the "step" here between the metal of the port and the valve seat. This bump is yet another restriction. | 
After a few swipes with the grinder, the step is gone, and air now has a smooth flow from the port to the combustion chamber. |
The rest of the port is also polished to a fine shine. This is before the combustion chamber itself has been polished. Note the same blue ink and scribe mark around the chamber. This is done by mounting the head gasket and scribing the cylinder openings, similar to the procedure done on the intake and exhaust ports. | 
DPR not only polishes the combustion chamber, but also smoothes the valve faces. This ensures that there will be as few hot spots as possible in the engine. These hot spots will literally glow under the intense heat of the combustion chamber, and can cause pre-ignition. | 
DPR also polishes the piston face. This helps to further reduce the possibility of hot spots and pre-ignition. |
Another important step that DPR takes is notching the pistons. The H22 is an interference motor, meaning that if your cam belt breaks, your pistons will crash into the partially-open valves. If that happens, you can pretty much kiss your engine goodbye. By notching the valves slightly, DPR helps to prevent this catastrophe from occurring. | 
After the head is polished, the combustion chambers are measured for volume using a caliper, a standard test fluid and a very steady hand. Ideally, all the combustion chambers will match perfectly. | 
The head is checked to make sure it is the same thickness all around using a large caliper. An uneven head won't seat properly on the block, causing leaks and inconsistent combustion chamber volumes. |
Part of the process also involves removing any sharp edges from the water jackets and oil passages. This doesn't create power, but it does make for smoother water flow and potentially better gasket seating. | 
DPR also smoothes out the edges of the block itself. Again, this is partly because it helps the head seat better against the gasket, but it's mostly done because it's a nice attention-to-detail step. | 
The intake manifold was also polished. Here, the inlet to the manifold has been polished and smoothed. The same was done inside the manifold as well. |
The H22 has a two-stage intake manifold, with two separate sets of ports to admit air from the top half of the manifold to the bottom half. All of the ports are polished and deburred. | 
This is the valve structure that is bolted between the upper and lower halves of the intake manifold. The butterfly valve opens a few hundred RPM before the VTEC cam switchover. The shorter runner it opens allows for greater high-end horsepower. | 
The port from the intake manifold has been polished and matched to the intake port on the head for the smoothest flow possible. |