Water ports in the block

["James J." <m1garand@speakeasy.net>]

Ok everybody.
   The other day I noticed that the two openings on the front of my 
block (3.9) where the water passes from the water pump/timing cover are 
not the same shape as the ports on the Buick timing covers that I have.  
The ports on the pump side are mostly rectangular, while the ones on the 
block are more of a trapezoid.  I said to myself "this must be for the 
newer waterpumps" and "I'll trace the gasket onto the block and grind 
open the block to match the gasket and timing cover".  My logic was that 
the block opening was much smaller than the pump opening, and that 
getting them to match would reduce turbulence, increase flow and help 
with the cooling problems of these engines.
   So after I did this, and was feeling good about myself, I was 
looking through the Hardcastle book on the Rover V8, and I noticed that 
ALL of the Rover blocks had this mismatched port design, including the 
early ones that used distributors.  Unfortunately I couldn't find any 
Buick block pictures.  So now I'm thinking it was designed that way for 
a reason, and I'm wondering how bad I screwed things up by doing this.  
Did I weaken a highly stressed area of the block?

All thoughts are welcome
JamesJ.

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