well, this sucks...

[SELLERSRODSHOP]

took a few mins today between shooting coats of paint & went up to the corner & borrowed that bore scope camera. as i suspected, some water did get into the cylinders during the fire. must have gotten in thru the exhaust ports on the cyliders whith open exh. valves. here are some rather crappy pics i took of the camera screen with the iphone:

the black looking thing is the top of the piston, above that is the cylinder wall.

another one:

on a good note, the clean cylinders still have the crosshatching visible in the cylinder walls.

i guess i'll have to back up to square one now, tear this thing down & have it rebuilt vs doing the cam change, bolt ons & dropping it in.. i'm just hoping that the rust hasn't pitted to the point that it would need boring vs just a hone job.

any ideas roughly how much it costs these days for a basic rebuild? haven't had one done in 20 yrs & it was a full tilt build, not a basically stock one.

also, this is a gt-40p roller motor. are there any weaknesses etc. that should be addressed now thats it will be coming apart? guess i have some research to do...

 

[tarafied1]

I just rebuilt a 302 for my buddies Ranchero. I spent a little over $1000 for the block to be dipped, bored .030" honed, new pistons and installed on the original rods, new gaskets, rings, bearings, cam and lifters, timing chain set, oil pump and a valve job on the stock heads. Another couple of hundred for a new harmonic balencer, assembly lube, new rocker arm nuts, carb rebuild kit, plugs, oil and filter. Probably about $1500 all together including paint and misc. stuff. Crank was okay and didn't need reground.
As for the GT40, the only thing I have heard is some have a goofy configuration for the spark plugs that make headers a difficult fit

 

[apollard]

Tarafied's about right. I have a little more (around 2k in mine) with the new cam, rod bolts/recondioning and headers. One thing to note: ALL the gt40p motors had torque to yield head bolts, so you must replace them (another $60 or so for ARP).

The plug orientation on the P heads is different to move the plug into the cylinder more for more complete/faster burn. They also have a better breathing exhuast port. Because of this, they are said to handle compression better - I've seen 10-10.5 motors running happily on regular around here. The headers will require a high dollar custom built set, or you can buy a set for the std SBF and mod them like I did - pics below. Since this is a transplant, that's probably something you are facing anyway.

On the up side, all the P headed motors I've seen ran like scalded dogs, and got great gas mileage.

 

[SELLERSRODSHOP]

yeah, knew about the plug issues with headers. i've seen the "P" compatible headers & it looks like the tubes come straight out a bit further before they turn down. in the tr-4 i'll have to use a block hugger type with a closer to center dump vs. the rear dump like you have pictured. hoping that with the center dump, the tubes will turn down more instead of angle back rearwards giving more clearance. if not, i'll cut & weld to suit...

took the camera back today & since the owner wants me to help him with an old coke machine resto, agreed to do the rebuild. he usually avoids any custom stuff other than his own projects, but i guess my timing was right. said to get all the stuff together that i want to swap/replace & bring it up there.

so far, plans are for a stock rebuild with the addition of a "B" or "E" cam & adding these to the heads:

http://www.alexsparts.com/sb-ford-gt40p ... yd-roller/

they look like good springs & about 2/3 the price of the trick flow kit...

now to find an early waterpump housing & suitable oil pan. time for a trip to pull-a-part when the weather clears!
also building a "wish list" at summit.