Hi all,
Now that I am starting to build the engine, I thought I'd let you in on some
observations.
My Edelbrock Performer RPM heads arrived with some inlet bowl blending and
some smoothing of the inlet ports. The exhaust ports/bowls (obviously less
critical for breathing) just had the CNC gasket matching done-- I removed
some casting ridges and smoothed things out.
The combustion chambers had some very sharp machining corners/edges
including a few sharp edges on the outsides of the valve seats (where they
protruded slightly from the cast aluminium. I smoothed these to reduce
pre-ignition (the fuel here is sometimes dodgy.)
When removing the valves, 3 of them had some metallic debris on their
stems-- my guess is that the guides were reamed but not cleaned properly. I
would never "bolt on" something without checking it first and often I'm glad
I did! I care far more about my engine than whoever put the heads together.
Thanks for those who replied about which way the rods face-- the side of the
rod journal with the bigger chamfer faces the side of the crank journal
(smaller chamfer faces the other rod.) Monroe's book doesn't mention this.
Has anyone on the list put Wilwood disks and calipers at the front? What
disks/calipers did you use? I've got Ford Sierra/Saphire rear calipers and
Peugeot 504 rear disks for the back and will report on that when finished.
Off to plastigage all my journals...
cheers, derek
Derek White
Managing Director
Zikomo Brewing Company
Box 31730, Lusaka, Zambia
Tel:260 1 286580/85
Cell: 260 1 702694
Fax: 260 1 238020
Brewing, beverage and food processing plants,
sanitary and aircraft welding and fabrication.
|