by Donnie Hurt | Feb 1, 2025 | BLOCK WORK, UNCATEGORIZED
On blocks and heads that have “suspect areas”, I have a “quick check” before I commit to bolting on the pressure test plates. I simply use my blow gun with a brake line attached, and blow air behind the questionable area, with some soap or bubble spray on the face...
by Donnie Hurt | Feb 1, 2025 | CYLINDER HEADS
I had some FE heads with some pretty decent burrs on the valve tips. Instead of slowly turning the valves by hand to file the burrs off, I grabbed an old valve lapping stick and chucked it up in the drill to spin the valves. It went really quickly, and I was able to...
by Donnie Hurt | Jan 15, 2025 | CYLINDER HEADS
On race engine cylinder heads that have exotic seat angles, I like to leave myself notes for future reference on freshen ups. I do keep a lot of notes in my folders and build sheets, but I found it handy to scribe the valve seat angles under the cylinder heads (kind...
by Donnie Hurt | Jan 15, 2025 | BLOCK WORK
After assembling over 5,000 engines, I have seen just about every conceivable problem that can arise during engine assembly. One particular area of concern was the cam bearing housing bore size in all engines, particularly Ford small block and big block engines,...
by Donnie Hurt | Jan 1, 2025 | TOOLING
Instead of using a file card/brush to clean pips & dirt from file teeth, flatten one end of a 6″ to 8″ length of 3/8″ copper tubing. Use the copper tubing as a scraper to quickly remove debris from the file teeth. Rub chalk into the teeth after...
