New paint! I think it'll look nice in a silver engine compartment.

not a fan of the blue, but its not terrible.

It's VHT ford light blue. I'm gonna bite others style and do a black wrinkle paint for the valve cover and fill in the lettering with the same blue. I'm thinking about flat blacking the IC pipes as well.

Today will be all about assembling the bottom end. I'll be installing the rotating assembly, oil pump, water pump, oil cooler, pick up tube and oil pan.

Progress pics to come.

Got busy today and only ended up installing the crank and rods. Maybe after xmas dinner tomorrow, I can sneak away for a few hours and get more done.

I was able to put some more time in today and got most of the lower end put together. New rear main seal and gasket, crank seal, oil pump gasket, cooler gasket, new water pump, and oil pan installed.

And yes, I am aware my garage is super cluttered.

Which rod bearings did you go with?

Clevite rod/main bearings and hastings rings. All standard size. I ordered them from one of our engine suppliers at my work.

In other news, I just finished replacing the cam seals, rear vc cap, front and rear coolant gaskets earlier today. The head is all ready to bolt back on tonight. Pictures to follow.

Not much to look at here, but the manifold is all back together after a thorough trip through the parts washer at work and has all new gaskets throughout.

The head got a good spray down with brakeclean and I hit the HG surface and ex/in with an abrasive disc. Everything is back in my garage now and I think i'm gonna put off assembly until the weekend.

The anticipation must be killing everybody.:sleep:

Edit- quick question, I had the cam sprockets off and forgot how they go back on. Right now I have the intake cam sprocket (I) mark lined up with the pin, and the exhaust sprocket (E) mark lined up with the pin. Is that right?

I was all set to install the head this weekend but decided to be patient and remember that this is a winter project, not a 4 week project.

The head gasket kit came with new premium valve stem seals, and even though I just had the head professionally refreshed 7k miles ago, I figured better to be safe than sorry and regret not doing this while it was already out of the car. So....

I ended up disassembling the valve train so I can lap the seats/valves and install the new seals.

Here are some pics of the lobotomy. The valves and caps will be going to work with me tomorrow so I can de-carbonize them on the wirewheel and clean them in the parts washer. Lapping (can I say lapping Rick?) and final assembly will be done at home. I may even try my hand at some porting but probably not.:noob:

Are you changing any of the hotside parts while you're building the motor?

Not right now. If I have an issue with the heli-coiled turbo (see above) then I may be forced to.

I will be adding a new exhaust system besides the begi downpipe once I am certain it runs good and isn't going to blowup but it'll stay stock until then.

Plans for the year include, exhaust, wheels/tires, suspension upgrades, and finally I'd like to convert the tan leather interior to all black with either cloth or racing seats. That's probably when I'll upgrade to a full stand alone as well. I was never a fan of the silver/tan combo, but the price was right and it came with a hardtop.

Finished lapping the valves. What a messy, time consuming project that was.

I still need to brake clean the hell out of all of it so none of that compound finds its way into the bearings.

Ok. Valves lapped, head got a decent cleaning, new seals installed, valves, springs, washers, keepers, and tappets installed. So far so good.

I think I'm going to wait until the head is back on the block to install the cams and check lash.

More updates to come later in the week.

So how hard was it to install valve seals? I'm going to be installing rings/rods shortly. I've never done anything more than a water pump as far as motor goes so I'm a little nervous about the whole thing. I wasn't planning on touching the head but after some reading I guess I better replace the seals while I'm in there. Just curious as to what im getting myself into.

The seals themselves are way easy, pull off- slip on - the time consuming part will be compressing the springs and getting the retainers in place.

Head meet block.

I'm hoping to have the majority of the engine back together by tomorrow night. I still need to order my clutch kit, anyone have luck with F1? I plan on resurfacing the stock flywheel and re-using it.

Head installed and torqued to spec.
Cams installed and torqued to spec.
Valve lash checked and to my surprise all 16 are still within spec.

Next up, timing belt...

More pics-

I have the urge to replace my turbo to manifold studs so I'm waiting to mount the turbo until I aquire some.

Also, I just bought some black wrinkle paint so the cover won't look like that for long.

sanded
primed
wet coat
coat after 10 minutes in front of my kerosene torpedo heater. For some reason the pics look way lighter than in person.

I'll post a pic tomorrow after it dries completely, and then after I fill in the lettering.

I Filled in the lettering today and installed the cover. I also got around to swapping all the studs and nuts out, mounting the turbo and running all the oil and coolant lines.

On the way home tonight I stopped to pick up my flywheel from getting resurfaced. Hopefully my clutch kit will show up friday morning.:yippee: