Excessive soot build up?

[donnerpassing]

While installing a new turbo, exhaust manifold, gaskets, etc, I couldn’t help but notice that the exhaust ports looked like they had a crazy amount of soot built up. I tried scraping it away to confirm it wasn’t just an illusion, but it was incredibly hard. I’m not crazy am I?

If it is excessive build up, what works best to burn it off? Just looking at it, I could see a little better exhaust flow if all that space taken up was burnt off

 

[AirheadNut]

Are you sure that’s all soot and not the difference in port size between the head and manifold?

 

[TheBussman]

looks like thats where the gasket was making a seal on the head, normal.

 

[mudgudgeon]

Looks normal

 

[donnerpassing]

Appreciate the input everyone, the offset of the port where it meets the gasket had me tripped out a little, and when in doubt, gotta mud it