[jdean]

Friday update

John,

You are right. It is like a lot of things with cars.....even a small project takes 3 trips to the auto store !!

Did some math and with the 289 and 60cc heads, it would make barely over 9-to-1 compression. Not good for a power recipe especially with a decent cam. So yesterday I dropped off the new heads at Kim Barr Racing Engines (KBRC) in Garland. Kim will remove .040 of material from the bottom of the heads, which will bring the CR up to 10.5-to-1. If you take more than .020 off the heads, it is likely you would need to mill the intake as well (or the intake face of the heads) in order for things to align properly.

So I left the intake with Kim as well to get it surfaced to match the heads. KBRC is where I had my 521 work done, and had Kim break it in on the engine dyno there. He does mostly Chevy work......but does his share of work for the "dark side" brand of engines like ours. He has complete machining, boring, surfacing facilities. A long time drag racer who set a few NHRA records himself, Kim caters mostly to the north Texas local drag racing and circle track industry. Why doesn't he campaign his cars anymore?Too expensive nowadays he says. It is alway interesting so look around his shop to see all of the high performance engines, with their expensive unobtainium parts, in various states of machining and assembly.

When the new cam gets here, we will mock up the heads, valves, pistons with clay to be sure there is enough piston to valve clearance. Jim bought a pushrod length checker so that we can be sure we have the exact size pushrods for this, especially after milling the heads.