well! i got back to the shop thursday night and have gotten back on my project
i started by getting everything for the bottom end together for the rotating assembly and dropped off at rex hutchison machine shop for balancing and the surfacing of the flywheel. after that i got to tearing down the new donor MC1 block for some cleaning so that it's ready for when all the bottom end parts arrive 8)
oven cleaner is working pretty good to really degrease the block, it's just not too good on the really thick stuff
i started the morning off by replacing the plastic distributor gear with the brass one. that pin is kind of a pain
i also had a broken off bolt that holds the water manifold on the head, so being a sucker and wanting to give the ol' easy out a try because it was a good MAC piece... well, that didn't turn out.. so the easy out became a difficult out and required drilling the hole oversized and helicoiling it.
then today i worked on the head a bit. the ports needed a bit of cleaning up, i didn't do much other than clean some of the crappy casting imperfections up. i focused mainly on the exhaust ports and then just blended the bowl/valve seat area for nicer flow.
this is what i started with...
started off by knocking the high spots off...
and smoothed em' out
stuff like this isn't so purty
so i smoothed them out too..
and this is the floor of the exhaust port, just smoothed out..
and these are the tools i used
i also got a nice new BPV
i checked the valve guides and they all seem rather worn... it would be stupid to not replace them now........ so, we're gonna get ahold of the machine shop on monday morning to see about a valve job and guide replacement

man, the projects adding up quick

oh well, it'll be built bullet proof and ready to go for many more years of abuse 8)