finally building!

Hey Scampy72!
We're practically neighbors! I'm in Farmingville. Anyway, I'm new to Mopar, but not to building engines and I have to agree with Moparlover, get the stuff cleaned professionally and have the bores, journals, lifter bores, deck and everything checked on the block. Then have the crank, rods, pistons and everything you want to reuse checked as well. I'm gonna say unless your core has very low miles, it's gonna need some machine work. Heck, even with low mileage the core can shift over time and cause problems. The only way to do it right is to check everything and when you get all the nice freshly machined stuff back from the machine shop....clean it again! Dishwashing soap is fine for this, but be sure to spray it down with WD-40 or something similar RIGHT AWAY or the newly machined surfaces will literally start to rust instantly! A tip to check for cleanliness is spray some WD-40 on a paper towell and wipe down the bores. if there's a gray residue on the towell....clean it again! Oil galleys and lifter bores can be cleaned with gun cleaning brushes or something similar.

You mention cleaning the cam. While you can reuse a flat tappet cam, I'm not a big proponent of it. If you're using the old lifters, they must be placed back in the exact same bores they were removed from or you will wipe out the cam in short order. If you're not exactly sure, you can use new lifters and allow them to wear into the old cam. As far as building tips, keep your work area neat, clean, organized and use the proper tools for the job. If you start taking short cuts it will return to bite you! If you don't have what's needed and you're not doing this regularly, you can probably get away with picking up what you need at one of the discount tool stores that just opened up in Bayshore, Centereach, Commack and Hempstead. Good luck and if you have any more questions, post 'em up!