Nice find on the engine, Bob.
If the cam has been rotated to remove it from the trans, you should pull those lifters and get some good cam lube on that camshaft. If you use a cone tip on a bottle of cam lube, you can get them ready to go, through the lifter bores, after pulling the lifters, spinning the crank a half turn or so at a time to hit all of it, all the way around.
I'd also suggest putting some on the face of the lifters and oiling the sides, to reinstall. You shouldn't have to remove the cam to do this work. It doesn't look like the parkerizing surface on the cam lobes has been broken in yet, so I don't think it's critical to remove the lifters and keep them in any order, but I would definitely put something on those lobes and lifter faces.
One thing that I found very easy on my build, and I would suggest to anyone doing an engine swap, is to leave the intake off of the engine, if not the cylinder heads (unless they are already in place) when installing.
This will eliminate the need for a balancer, as you can put a sling of chain across two of the intake bots, one on the left or right rear, opposing the front and get the boom of the engine hoist way down into the area where the intake would normally occupy.
When I did this, it eliminated the need to remove the hood from the car, gave me access to the bellhousing bolts from the top side, easily, and most importantly, allowed me to leave the lifters out, to rotate the crank, in order to install the torque converter to flex plate bolts without wiping the break in lube from the cam.
Headers are a good investment on an engine that you plan on running really quickly, but the 340 manifolds are plenty adequate for a street use car.
I hate headers on anything that will be driven on the street, because they are a maintenance nightmare and rob drivability. In my opinion, the occasional gain in MPH and lower E.T. at the track is not worth it on an A body that can use manifolds. Even on a B body, they are cumbersome.
I think you should get a degree wheel and using a solid lifter, or a hydraulic lifter that is blocked shut, so it won't collapse, measure the lobe crank duration on an intake and exhaust.
The lift you gave me, (.327) being actual lobe lift, was this on an intake and exhaust lobe? You want to check for split duration, because that is going to have an effect on flow percentage. If you have a square cam, meaning everything on the intake and exhaust is cut the same, your exhaust will need to be more free flowing and the engine will likely make power at a higer RPM range.
.327 lobe lift is going to look like .490" on a true 1.5:1 rocker arm. Factory rocker arms are closer to 1.45-1.47:1 and you will lose an overall .010" in final lift, from the angle of the pushrod geometry in a small block.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing, because your cylinder heads have a limit on max lift, at the valve guide/ seal to spring retainer. There needs to be enough room for the seal, so it won't crush.
490" is about as far as you'd really want to go on a stock head. Some heads, Hughes Engines calls a maximum of .460" lift, without having the valve guides trimmed shorter, for more clearance/ lift.
In order to know what your engine is going to perform like, it's critical that you get as much information as you can, on the camshaft.
The rest of the engine looks fairly straight forward. If the operator aimed the rings and torqued everything as per the shop manual, I'd say you got a pretty good deal.
One way to kind of cheat and see what sort of pistons you have, is to shine a flashlight into one of the exhaust or intake ports on a valve that is open and peek through the sparkplug hole, to get a good look at the top of the piston. You want to look for a marking near the center of the piston. Numbers usually indicate overbore.
Questions;
What are you going to do with the car?
I built the Scamp for driving. If you are going to run it on the track once in a while, it makes more sense to build power down low in RPM range, because the car will be seeing more of that. Even though the car I'm building will eventually see an 833 OD that I'm building, I want torque on the low end, so Amy doesn't have to play with the clutch a whole lot in traffic. This is also why I opted for the O/D, because the 3.09 will help a lot in stop and go traffic. Makes for a crappy racecar though.
When are you planning on converting the car to a 4spd?
The 8 1/4 should hold up fine, even behind a stick, but if it's going to be years before you go with a stick, you might consider getting a converter to match the cam's torque/power range in stall.
Those heads will fish about 69cc if they have the flat valves. I'm willing to bet they are around 71-72. When I cc'd my '302 swirl port heads, they came up at 62, before I had the milled. They are likely 61 now, but a good goal is around 63-4 for pump gas.
The type of head gasket you use will depend on the piston to deck clearance. You are looking for a quench of somewhere within .039-.035. Given your equipment, the head gasket should respond to the piston's distance to give you the final quench distance, between the piston and close side of the chamber.
That head is an open chamber, but can still make good power.
If that were my engine, I'd be pulling both heads to measure everything and inspect the work done, as well as valve spring retainer to valve stem seal distance and to check for hardened exhaust valve seats. Those are a must, so you don't burn the seats up in short order.
I'd be way too curious on piston size, piston to deck distance, shape of piston and CC of the head, to want to save money on head gaskets. All of those things will tell you how the engine is going to run.
Odds are, it will run just fine without disassembling anything, but it will be a mystery and only trial and error will give you an idea about how to pick the rest of your running gear.
Nice find. Check it out with a mic and see where to go from here!
