9/5/2004:Yesterday (Sat.) I worked on the other cylinder head and when I got to intake #3 and my worst fear had come true: I broke through the intake plenum wall into the push-rod access tunnel. I went from being relieved of being nearly complete with the head work, to total idiocy. D-OH! doesn't really describe it. At this point, I sucked it up and knew one of two things will happen: 1) throw it away and buy a new head at $550 for new one or 2) weld the hole up.
I continued to finish the last port and ensured I didn't break through the plenum wall and cleaned up the cylinder head with a final pass with the Standard Abrasives grit, and washed it down thoroughly; I then removed all the rocker studs and guide plates in preparation for some shop work.
As of right now, I've got a connection to a place called Specialty Welding in Mountain View that I'll try. Might cost $50-100 but it's a lot less than $550!
Today, without much else to do, I unwrapped the engine and installed the other 8 lifters and locked them down with the keepers (so the roller lifters stay aligned with the camshaft lobes.) Used Loc-Tite Red on the two allen screws that hold down the spring steel retainer that hold down all 8 of the lifter keepers. I also went ahead and finalized the passenger side valve cover and gasket. All bolts torqued to 5 ft-lbs.
I'm not sure how long the welding will take; but since I have no .015" shims for the base of the springs, and still no valve locks, there will be a long lull in things to do in September. On a side note, year one of the start of this project is almost here ( Oct. 2003 is when I started the real journey). I'll have a summary of year one prepared; stay tuned.
9/10/2004:I took my cylinder head to "Advanced Welding in Mountain View, CA. I was told by HankL that they do a lot of work for race cars. The head was dropped off on Thur. afternoon and was actually done Friday afternoon! However, due to their closing time ( 3:30 PM) I won't be able to get it till Monday. The person that was on the phone noted it was very thin where I was working on and built up that wall pretty good. It makes me wonder now, if this type of head should be port matched that far back; appears you can only do the port entry for maybe the first 1/8" in. Time will be the determining factor now for all the other ports I did as I know I'm very close on some of them but I'll see what happens. The worst case (hopefully) stress cracks develop and I suck in fumes and get some funny idle issues. I guess this is why you leave this to the pro's. Still, I feel I learned a great deal out of the experience and don't regret this part of the build at all.
9/13/2004: The cylinder head was picked up today. I smoothed out the weld spots on both sides ( push rod hole and intake wall ). This time, I took my time
and tried to get it as "vertical" as possible. Looking at how the surrounding cut was made, I can now see where I went wrong but how I wandered so far off, I'm not quite sure; chalk it up to a little heat fatigue I guess. I finished assembling the rest of the head ( valve stem seals, springs, locks, retainers ). I should be able to permanently mount the head tomorrow. Stay tuned.
9/17/2004: The wire loom organizer is from R&M Specialties and as a detail touch, I added numbers to the wires for easy ID.
