'66 Side Oiler, My Barn Find and Build

[RICK LAKE]

elmariachi I have tryed to convince you about saving the block and failed. I will try again and tell you the same about those heads. If the heads have matching date codes and some one is looking for a 100% perfect car they are worth $5-8,000 untouched. No you are not going to get this much money for them now with the way the country is in the crapper. They are an investment for down the road. KCR sells his Stage 2 heads on sale here for a great price. As far as valve seats, YOUR machinist gets 1 time to get them right. I have seen way to many guys do this job and 6 months later they fall out or come loose. This is not a simple job. .0005" off will cause problems. Once done you can't undo this. I would tell you to go to plan "B". Run the heads with octane boost that has lead or buy race fuel and mix it to unleaded stuff. The ONLY real why to know if the motor is going to have a problem is to install a knock sensor kit. These work realy well on hydro cam motors but not 100% sure on a solid lifter or solid roller motor. LM-1 A/F meter would be the other thing. Running a little rich will not hurt the motor as bad as running LEAN. 12.7-13.2 is a good save area. Any higher or lower and you are looking for a problem. I hope you are just having fun with us on this motor. The thing to remember from some of us is this, damage the block or the heads, there is about a 40% chance of repairing them. You could have a pile of scrap metal worth $1.00 per hundred pounds. Build an aluminium motor and heads, there is maybe a 10% chance the motor is not repairable. Rick Lake Ps call KCR and compare his heads done complete to the work you guy is going to do. My guess is about $800.00 for machine work and valve seats. He then have to regrind the valves and lap them in. If he has done some machine work on them alreally, add this to the price also. Good luck. PSS I have a question for you to think about, what happens if the seat falls out of the head and major damage is done? Will your machinist stand behind the work and replace them heads? Try and find a set of heads that have not been milled,ported, or raped. He will stake the seats in but have seen the stake areas burn out and they come loose. Call Gessford and talk to Neil about this work. Keith would also be another good opinion to talk too.