They definitely spared no expense on the valve guide steps to keep the seals on! Glad I bought an extra set of seals as I murdered a few of them...

Quick update, got the retainers and springs all swapped over, I had 2 different valvespring compressors and neither of them did that great of a job on the Isky springs. The manual one I bought from Summit was clunky and hard to keep centered, and a very nice air powered one I borrowed from a friend didn't have enough oomph to compress the springs the last 1/8" or so to get the keepers in easily- I would end up hitting the retainer with a soft mallet that would allow the keepers to drop in. They're all in within 1.975"-1.995" now depending on the existing shims that were already installed.

Dropped all of the engine parts off to Jim in Pittsburgh last week, except the pistons which still weren't done even though they were promised on the 5th! Those just showed up yesterday, picked them up from another friend here in Detroit that is starting his own engine shop and is attached to Mike Moran's building so I got a tour of that facility too. Shipped the pistons last night so hopefully machinework can start and I'll see the motor in a month or two! Final compression will be 11.04:1 after the deck gets cut to 10.720" for the cometics. I'm on work trips for most of May, will be cutting it really close for Sick Summer but we'll see how it plays out. Due to some unexpected personal stuff I might not do Drag Week this year, but am still hoping to do Sick Summer. Really excited to see what it will do with the new motor!

GY3, would love to see the pics of the Honda. This is my Lil Indian, went overboard restoring it during covid, and it's now too nice to use as a pit bike so I have a Coleman that gets used at the track.

-Nick