Sorry for the long delay between updates! A lot of things have happened since last time, but none of them were interesting enough to make a whole page. Here’s the compilation of the last three weeks.

The really big news is that my new motor arrived! For the time being it slumbers in its crate, while I marshal my resources for the final push… (translation - I need money to finish getting all the new parts that will get slapped on before the engine goes in)

I’ve also been cleaning up the hardware that will make its way back onto the motor. To make it easier, I got a vibratory cleaner that uses ground up walnut shells to gently polish metal parts. It’s not a process for the impatient, since it takes quite a long time to remove heavy grease and grime, but it’s much nicer than trying to clean up bolts with a wire wheel. They don’t get hot, or yanked out of your hand and thrown at you. Just dump the parts into the polisher, turn it on, and let it run overnight.

Here we see some before, during, and after shots. It’s not perfect, but considering that it’s nearly effortless to use, I think it does a pretty good job. Plated or polished parts like hose clamps come out glistening.

For bigger pieces, like the torque converter cover shown here, I’m using a blasting cabinet filled with the same walnut media. It works great on dirty parts as you can see, but for rusted bits like the exhaust manifolds, I’ll need some more aggressive media like aluminum oxide. After the rust gets stripped, they’ll get hit again with the walnut shells to polish them.

I saved the best for last. Here’s the upper intake that McCoy Motorsports worked over. It’s been cleaned up, repainted and detailed, and most importantly ported to match the lower intake. Compare the second photo to how it looked when I sent it off in the bottom two pictures.

Hopefully, there will be more old school wrenching to report on next time. Still to come: Home-ported turbo fun, mucking out the engine bay, and rewiring the rat’s nest!