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Reply to "A(nother) Bridge Too Far"

@LI-Rick,

I've been looking back over this thread to see what I've covered and what I've missed. There are volumes that could be written, but even I'd be bored with them.

The thumbnail sketch of it is that everything that could fight Jason on this build, fought Jason on this build. The case was built three different times for three different cams (it's all back there, if you can wade through it). Everything was complicated by COVID,and the supply-chain issues that attended it. Getting a proper cam took the entire summer-- all freaking summer (!) to get the right thing.

The heads fought as well. There was a time when Jason asked me if I wanted to check the flow delta between the untouched heads, and with the work we were doing. Honestly at that point, it seemed silly-- an extra bunch of work to prove what? Regardless of if we had made the situation better, worse, or done nothing at all-- what was done was done. I didn't want to take the time to quantify it for curiosity's sake.

In the end, with the cam fiasco (all my fault for "solving" a problem by making a ton more work), we could have done it... assuming we had a set of untouched Panchitos to compare mine with. At the time, all of the focus was on getting a properly made cam from Web. Jason had 6 months of machine work piling up, and I didn't want to send him on another goose-chase to give me numbers that would only be useful to .001% of the guys buying Panchitos. They are great heads, right out of the box-- only an idiot would pay somebody to clean up the ports and put beehives in them.

Regardless, we really did almost nothing to the ports-- as Jason was as concerned as I was about not taking off any extra material. We really just smoothed the transitions in the bowl and cleaned up the casting. I doubt we did much of anything actually, but it makes me feel better to have spent a bunch more money on them.

I could not be happier with Jason and @Vintage Volks. It's been a long, long road, and one that I'm sure will give Jason some pause the next time he takes on "custom" work for an OCD guy trying to go down a road nobody else is taking. From a business standpoint, it's suicide-- custom work is where time goes to die.

The engine is on a pallet and in the possession of UPS freight. Hopefully, it's headed for me, but given my experience with all manner of freight and supply-chain issues this year-- I'll be able to breathe again when I see it in my garage.

Once I have it, I'm by no means done. I'm planning on doing crank-fire ignition, and with a mouth-breathing knuckle-dragger stuck in 1979 doing the work-- it should take all winter to get the engine in the car.

More exciting details to follow, as they develop.

Last edited by Stan Galat
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