You know, I don't port heads any more unless they are my own and I just do the port match and clean up without hogging anything out. I drive my cars on the street not a race track. That doesn't mean that I can't do a professional racing port job. I have done them and used to have my own flow bench to help. For the guy in his garage those numbers don't mean much because they will never push their engines to 8000 or more RPMs. To the professional those numbers mean EVERYTHING! If you can't produce HP then you can't sell your work. HP and torque are related - both are necessary to make a racing engine. Your torque ends before your HP does so you need HP to take over after the torque drops off. An engine that produces 800 ft lbs of torque but won't turn fast enough to make 900 HP won't win a race. If torque was all it took there would be a lot more diesels winning races! HP is speed and Torque is acceleration - YOU NEED BOTH.
Gentlemen, let us notice that we have seen both sides of the auto enthusiast game here. We have the rodders and the racers. Their needs are different. They do what they do to match their needs. We can each learn from each other - but rodders, you can learn a lot from the racers and fit it to your needs.
Nobody gets 40 years of experience doing it wrong..........

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Paul
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retired mechanic after 35 years
specialized in Holley carbs and Ford Automatic Transmissions