Got the heads back from the machine shop yesterday.  Although they looked perfectly fine the old Edelbrock heads had some known issues.  Weak springs, valve guides, valve seals… all of those could present issues.  The machinist commented how weak the springs were and that the base of the spring had started cutting into the head from them moving. So he advised putting in a hardened keeper and put in new seals. Lots of seat pressure now to keep those valves closed between timing events. Along with the typical valve job and cutting of the mounting surface the heads were in great shape.  

Time to get moving on assembly…. quick!!  I have a custom grind cam from Buddy Rawls and indexed timing chain ready to go into this motor.  I plan to clean up the block and paint it cast iron grey to make it look better.  it’s currently painted blue.  Don’t worry, I’ll keep the original motor to the car.  And to that, it is rumored that the cars that got the balanced/blue printed motors don’t have the original blocks.  I haven’t been able to confirm that but it came from a pretty reliable source.  This is when I really wish Joe was still around to ask questions. He could debunk all those myths about these cars because he built them. 

Freshly Machined Flywheel and heads. Fully assembled/balanced blueprinted short block under the plastic.