Always great to see an update from you sir. Photo's would be the icing on the cake!

Yep, it's coming. A lot of final prep for this engine build... a whole lot of polishing.

Here you go... heads with the Harland sharps on them, easily clearing the Moon valve covers

try this again

Here are the front (remember flywheel is on the 'front' of this engine) cover, the original marauder intake, and the very complicated 'rear' cover which also has engine legs, the mounts for the oil and transmission cooler, the timing cover gasket, and the transmission bolts to it. These required HOURS of grinding sanding and polishing. I sent them out to be final polished to a local polishing place. Thanks to Hugo from California polish... he did a great final prep before they will be high temp powder coated in a slightly less than gloss finish.. I don't want a plasticky look on this stuff.

Thanks for the great photo's. By the way you remember that friend of mine who has the 430, I asked some question for? Well his is now alive! I'll be seeing it this Sunday afternoon.

Work and Work,....worling at the car polish. Dude, that' I call work. I strongly recommend using tubular spacers instead of the stock rocker shaft springs. Are you familiar with the rocker tip to valve tip motion? You need to check that,...very important. There are lots of articles out there. I think the mayor cam shaft manufacturers have how to articles with illustrations,....oh I'm getting old. off course check YouTube.too.
Nice engine for a fancy boat. looks like you're going to pimp that vessel to fame. Can't wait to watch her being fired up on YouTube.
Thanks for sharing.

Can you buy those spacers Theo? I admit being a little over my head on the valve to tip check, but I messed around a bit, and it looks good. Any advice on how to definitively check that valve to tip? Check it when the engine is assembled but not fired?

Edit: found the spacer kit from Harland Sharp, and ordered them.

The spacers will keep everything exact for sure... but is it necessary for an engine that is used within moderate limits..?

Great news on your buddy Rick, send me some photo's or a post a youtube!!!

Chris Craft crazy wrote:......... I admit being a little over my head on the valve to tip check, but I messed around a bit, and it looks good. Any advice on how to definitively check that valve to tip? Check it when the engine is assembled but not fired?

O.K. I'll help on that but you need to be a little patient I'm in the middle of moving and time is a big issue at the moment. This step is too important to skip. So, please hold on.

Chris Craft crazy wrote:found the spacer kit from Harland Sharp, and ordered them. The spacers will keep everything exact for sure... but is it necessary for an engine that is used within moderate limits..?

Well, not exactly true. The spacers are a good starting point as for axial space. Depending on the way you adjust the rockerarms according to the right tip to tip motion it's not uncommon that you have to shave them to correct length. More of this later, sorry.
And yes IMO and experience the alum. spacers are a great way to make sure the rocker arms won't slip sideways off their corresponding valve tips. Had this happening on a moderate RV cam w. an FE engine.
When it happened I noticed a loud ticking quite similar to a collapsed lifter, maybe a little louder. After lifting the valve cover there you had it. One rocker arm had slipped sideways and off from the valve tip. Fortunately it was a Harland sharp rocker arm so its' function was still intact to some lesser degree. It simply opened and closed the valve with is' rocker tip shoulder (the area very near to the roller).
Dunno what the engine or at least that cylinder would have looked like if the valve motion would have completely failed as this would have been the case w. a stock rocker arm.
At the same time this was a great real life test on how rigid those HSharps are.

Chris Craft crazy wrote:Great news on your buddy Rick, send me some photo's or a post a youtube!!!

aah, you guys have secrets,...

BTW, here's one of 6 loads in total. If you see an intake on this truck, think of it as the top of a stack of 3, etc. We're in day three now and I wonder how my back could handle all this. Yesterday we had mainly engine blocks. Today was the day of mainly cranks. man, I had almost forgotten how many parrts I have gathered during the last 20 years. I found about 25 crankshafts. FRE cranks are about 32 Kiloos while the 429 cranks is, well I didn't weigh it but its a Monster, probably slightly bigger than a MEL crank.

I wish we had the trucks that Europe has... We lack those smaller diesel trucks, and substitute big ass gasoline pickups that get ten miles to the gallon. arggh.

Theo, dude, that's a lot of iron. I'm sure it was all very important to save...
(looks like my shed)