Went to the NMCA opener at Bradenton on the 21st, put the car in the show and watched some racing..... Sunday I went to the shop to work on porting the heads and had a major f-up, I managed to make a hole into the water jacket in the swirl ramp area on the second intake valve pocket(junk 1 new head)..... I have a set of used 862's, I took them apart but they are going to need a lot of machine work(valve job, guide work and surfacing)..... I looked around and found a new complete set of 862's that have never been bolted on, I bought them and got them yesterday..... The only issue with these is you have to be careful what head gasket you use on them because the have the notch in the deck surface..... I researched the head gasket issue today and everywhere I found they say you have to use composite/graphite head gaskets and mls gaskets would leak, but I did find that Victor Reinz is making a new series of mls gaskets that address this issue..... Here is the hole I made in the swirl ramp area, lesson learned..... Here is the new heads with the notch in the deck surface..... Since I have a junk head I decide to see how far I could go in the exhaust port roof before hitting a water passage..... So I ported the exhaust opening to a d shape but not widening it other then clean up..... Then I ground into it until I hit the water passage, it looks like I will have plenty of material there(it was still just over .100 before I hit the water passage after porting)..... Funny thing is I wasn't even concerned about hitting water in the intake side, but was worried about it in the exhaust roof(I was going to use one of the used heads as a guinea pig, but I have the junk head to use instead)..... Here is the ported exhaust opening with the hole ground into the water jacket..... I am going to take the new heads apart tomorrow so I can get started on them..... Almost forgot, I got the lifter and trays in the short block yesterday after work..... I also got the 12an crankcase vents made and welded to the new Holley valve covers(I will get some pic's of these tomorrow when I am painting them).....
I had a lot of crap to do today but I did manage to get the heads apart..... I picked up a new die grinder this week, my old one was on it's last leg..... I went ahead and tried it on one of the rocker bolt bosses in the intake port, it has a much smoother trigger and produced a much more controlled smoother finish..... Here is the rocker bolt boss I took down..... and I didn't have any time to get the valve covers painted, but here a pick of them.....
Made some progress on the heads today..... Got all the rocker bolt bumps out of the intake runners, then I roughed in the intake bowl area on both heads where I made a hole in the other head..... I roughed both sides of the intake bowl area on one port, I will make some more progress tomorrow..... Here is where all the intake runners are at this point..... Here is the one I roughed the entire bowl area..... Almost forgot, I did get the valve covers painted this week.....
Looking good, frank! So, all those posts on the valve covers are for the Power By Ford emblems? That's over doing it a bit don't ya think?
Got a little more done this morning, now I have 6 intake bowl areas like the one in the last picture.....
I worked on the heads some more today, got the intake runners completely roughed in..... Also started to smooth out the intakes...... Here they are roughed in..... and here the floors and side walls after some sanding roll work.....
I got my alt only bracket earlier this week, I had to drill the upper hole in the truck block for it but it fits well..... I also ordered a Powermaster 165 amp alt and ARP hardware to use in the bracket, I arrived Friday so I will get it on the block and find the necessary belt this week..... Today I was able to get all the exhaust ports roughed in, the sanding role work will commence tomorrow..... Here is the alt bracket attached to the shortblock..... Here is the port opening before and after roughing in..... Here is the bowl area before and after roughing in..... and here is the opening after the port floor was roughed.....
Finished the exhaust ports today..... I also got the chambers cleaned up in one head..... There getting close to being done..... Here's what the finish exhaust port looks like..... Here is a cleaned up chamber compared to the stock one(I was just trying to get the really coarseness out of there).....
Got the chambers in the second head done, deburred both heads and cleaned up all sealing surfaces..... Then washed the thouroghly..... Ready to lap the valves in and install springs/retainers now..... Also cleaned up the giant mess on my bench..... Here's what the heads are looking like now.....