A Very Special Birthday Present

Thanks to the generosity of many people, I am now in possession of a pair of 140 HP engine heads. My lovely wife, my parents, and my in-laws were the generous givers of the gift, while Irv Brock was the generous seller who cut us a great deal. Please see this previous post for more info. Following are photos I took of one of the heads. The other looks basically the same.
With all on my plate, I hope it’s not an eternity before I get them installed. Before they get bolted on, I need to do a few things to them that I hadn’t mentioned in my earlier entry. First, these heads have larger diameter valves that the standard Corvair engines. This contributes to a propensity to drop valve seats – not a desirable event. To prevent this, there are a number of seat retention methods in use. The one that appeals to my frugal, do-it-myself mentality is the setscrew technique detailed here. Next, I need to clean out the flashing between the fins. A good explanation of the how and why is here. I want to try my hand at porting and polishing. There are many ideas and techniques for this, and I’ve still got lots of reading to do before putting grindstone to aluminum. Finally, even though these heads appear to be in near-new condition, I want to lap each valve in its seat to ensure good contact and sealing.

Obviously, this will be a long-term project where I attempt to squeeze in working on them between the more pressing fleet management tasks.