I moved on to looking at the 043 Mexico heads and the intakes. The heads, as described by the previous owner were "racing heads." They indeed, had been massaged. Porting swirls down the intake and exhaust, 40mm and 35mm valves. Otherwise, nothing special. I decided to just make sure I was getting good flow from the intake manifolds into the heads.
The Erling gasket overlapped the rockers side of the ports. Plus, it was way too big for the Kadron manifolds.
Gasket trimmed to fit the intake.
I then flipped the trimmed gasket and put it on the intake manifold and trimmed it to not block the openings. I made a thin paper replica of the trimmed gasket, cut holes to fit the studs, attached (blue masking tape) 2 positioning bolts on intake and made sure the paper gasket fit. I sprayed some paint onto a paper towel and coated the contact surface of the Kadron manifold, pulled it off and let it dry.
I labeled the orientations on the blue gasket and slid it into place on the head.
I rubbed the edges of the ports on the head with a pencil to get an outline. Using a dental pick, I followed the blue outline of the Kadron ports and put tiny indentations in the surface of the intake ports where the Kadron ports didn't overlap. Look closely on the lower side and you'll see a semi-circle of dots ranging up to 4mm outside the ports on the head.
The gasket had blocked the Kadron ports at the top and the port overlap had blocked them at the bottom. It had clearly gotten the full "race head" treatment. Hey, what do I know.
On a wild hunch that spinning a big drill would make me feel happy, I got out my porting burrs.
I matched the head intake ports with the Kadron manifold and blended a smooth passage to the intakes. I didn't mess with the porting that had already been done inside the head, I just made sure there was a straight shot in and curved edges.
I went ahead and cleaned up the Kadron manifold where it is welded to the coupling plate. There were areas where the plate edges intruded into the ports. I just smoothed those out.
One side down and I'll finish up the other side tomorrow. I find this kind of work very satisfying. I guess it hits my OCD just right.
