Hey guys, I am building a 455, with my 15 yr. old son, to be installed in his 72 skylark. This will be his first car. We just picked up the engine block from the machine shop and I have a question about a couple of the cooling ports where the heads sit. There 2 ports that have poor casting (1 on each side) where about 1/3 of the port is closed off with rough casting. My thinking is that this could cause undesirable hotspots in the heads and block in these locations. Should I clean these up carefully with a die grinder and just clean up the passages with compressed air? Let me know what you think. Thanks
Hold a head gasket up to those holes to ascertain what might be blocked, it could be different installed on either side of the block. I'm not near one at the moment to look. I knock out ugly blobs of casting flash and chase them some with a carbide, but that has very little to do with cooling concerns and more for cosmetics or if something might find it's way to an oil pump. Many of the large holes are for the purpose of shaking the casting sand out.
If you place a head gasket onto the block deck, you will see those holes are blocked by the gasket, or the gasket has a very small hole in that location. http://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo.php?pk=122072&cc=1379763&jsn=510
I should have thought about comparing with the head gasket. I compared the holes to the heads and there are coresponding holes in the heads too. It fooled me. I set the gasket on the block, and indeed they are blocked by the gasket. Thanks guys, I guess I just got caught up overthinking things. Haha.
It's been asked and answered before so I knew the answer right away:grin: I've been here since 2002. This site is awesome, I learn something new here every day. Lots of knowledgeable people here.
Thanks for sharing your knowledge guys. It sure does help to have experienced guys to draw from. I cleaned the holes up anyways. The perfectionist in me couldn't stand to leave it like that. Thanks again
