Well, made progress over the weekend.

Got the heads back from the shop. CC'd at around 81 after having .010" removed. Was 82cc before milling. Heads are on and torqued to spec. with a light, tacky coat of copper coat.
Installed camshaft & timing chain set and verified intake duration meets spec card.

Unfortunately I found a chip on the corner of one of the lifters while inspecting, so not willing to take any chances in this department, I ordered a new one.

Installed 9.31" pushrods & non-adj. rockers. and appears rocker to valve stem contact is pretty good during revolution. Verified the lifter preload at around.060, which I thought preload was a little much and would like to have seen it come in around .020-.040. There's still .030 or so travel remaining before it bottoms out, and my mechanic friend says there is a lot of forgiveness here and should be ok. I'm worried about valve float when oil pressure builds at hi RPM.

Next is 6 qrt pan, windage tray, pickup, and HV pump. Also ordered the Billet rear main seal kit from Mancini which I hear never leak.

Already have the HV pump from the last rebuilt engine with only 15k on it, so I'm running it. Pressure was 25-35 PSI @idle hot, 65 PSI at hi RPM using straight 30W

As for the rear main seal, I did some research, and looks like knurled=rope, smooth=lip. My crank being stock, is most likely knurled.

Just wanted to update everyone on the rebuild.

Started the engine Saturday, broke in the 509 cam, dumped the oil, and now have about 5 hrs and 75 miles on it...mostly hard accel & deaccel under 5k rpms to seat the rings. So far so good.

Cooling was a big concern to head of detonation w/ an estimated 10.5:1 CR & 906 cast heads,, so I found a 1969 2949054 max cool 3 core radiator w/ shroud and 7 blade 18" x 2.5" viscous fan. Running a 185 degree, high flow therm, and she's running nice and cool, even with the Coan 11" 2600 stall converter & 3:91 gears.

With Sunoco 93, I set initial timing to 14, w/ 22 mechanical for 36 total by 3000 rpm (I may want to revisit this). Autolight 85's are gapped at 0.045" using a Mallory Hyfire ignition w/ Promaster coil and sidewinder wires.

Carb is a 4150 (700cfm) with 74 jets prim/84 sec (may also want to revisit this with a chassis dyno)


Decided to pull all 8 spark plugs this morning to inspect. I included a pic of cycl 1 (all 8 are close to the same). I'm pretty much just staying on the carb primaries at speeds of 30-50mph.

Would love some feedback on the spark plug. I'm thinking they look pretty good...maybe on the lean side, but I'm by no means an expert at plug reading.