I've been working on getting the engine in order...deburring, cleaning, checking.  Waiting on some additional sets of bearings to get my clearances right.  More pictures later.

But my intake came today - ported FAST 102 done by Tony Mamo of AFR.  His work is flawless.  Pics of the porting later.  I'm tired.

And here it is next to my valve cover.  The finishes don't match exactly but I'm not sure I care enough to alter it.  I think it'll look ok when the engine is all assembled.

Lost pretty much all this previous week and weekend to travel.  I was in Boston during the week for some work related training, then drove out to Philly for my sister's college graduation Sat/Sun.  Here's one leaving Boston.

Chassis work 

During the down time I got some abrasive discs for my angle grinder and a bunch of sheet metal for making my patch panels.  (3) 2'x4' sheets of 18 ga and (1) 2'x4' sheet of 16 ga.  We'll see how long that tides me over.  Now I have to look for forming tools, a bead roller would be nice to have.

A bit more progress on the chassis:  cut the rear outer seat mount for the drivers seat off of my replacement panel and tacked it in place to the inner layer of the rocker.  I scribed an outline of the original before removing it so I could line the new one up fairly easily and accurately.

Sprayed the new one in etching primer for now.

Tacked.  This will preserve the right location until I can get the floor patch in.  Once that happens I'll transfer the mount to it, break the tacks loose, then remove that layer of the rocker and continue with the repairs inside to out.

Also worked on the "A" pillar area of the car.  This fucker is where one of the tubes drained to from the sunroof.  I'm going to have to pull this and likely remake it out of 16 ga.  Needs  to be removed to get me access to the inner layer of the rocker so I can cut it out and replace it.

Engine build prep

Also started some work on engine stuff.  I started with removing a boss in the valley area to give the PCV system on my LS6 valley cover sufficient clearance.  Lowe's was closed so I had to cut this with a hack saw.  It was fun.

Guessed about right on the depth though:

I also took some time to start deburring / breaking edges everywhere on the block with a fine file.  Any sharp features are stress risers and provide possible initiation points for cracks to develop.  I did the valley cover, head mounting surfaces, rocker ports, and casting areas near the bottom of the cylinder sleeves. 

Casting flash removed:

Casting flash not removed, you can see how rough it is around the perimeter of the port.

This week I plan on continuing the prep / clean the block for building.  Still need to finish deburring, mask the block and paint the exterior surfaces, clean the internal passages again, and measure everything (again).

Made a bit more progress today on the driver's side.  Made patch pieces for the crossbrace / front driver's seat mount out of some scrap 18 ga sheet I had laying around.

Pretty simple, but more difficult only because I have almost no metal working tools.  The only thing I added were dimple features to stiffen up the large open area of the sheet while simultaneously reducing the weight.  The larger holes were cut with a 2" hole saw, the smaller ones were a 1" hole saw.  I pulled the edges of the hole with needlenose pliers.  Pretty crude but with some patience it worked pretty well.  With the flanges and dimples these panels are incredibly stiff for their weight.

Welded up.

This is one of the underside.  I didn't cut the patch on the right large enough to incorporate the flange into it to join into the inner panel, so at a later time I cut a piece and welded it on for that purpose.  No pics of that though yet.

In etching primer.

Oh and what's this?  Hello there sweet thing, come around here often?

Block is back from the second shop.  He made the cylinder more round and gave me a bit more clearance, as the original hone job was on the tight side.  He also line honed the main journals and measured my clearances.  I ended up having to go with a Clevite-H 0.001" undersize main bearing to make my clearances tighter...cold they were at 0.0025-0.003" with the P's.  In an aluminum block those will grow to beyond 0.004" when it's up to temperature, which is terrible for oil pressure.  Right now I'm sitting at ~0.001-0.0015" cold with the -H's, so should be in the mid 0.002"s when hot.  Cherry.

Still lots of work to do, still lots of parts to buy.  Trying my best to take it a day at a time.