Got some new parts!
These are CP pistons I got through Blair Patrick Racing. They aren't coated yet, because I'm going to mock them up in the engine and check piston to valve clearance before I go ahead with the coating. They are nearly a flat top, with only about a .035" high dome outboard of the valve pockets. They weigh 557 grams each, and the pins weigh another 152 grams. 8000 RPM!
I also got the rings for the pistons. What I had been hoping for on the rings was to go to a .043/.043/3mm ring package. However, as it turned out those thin rings were not available in my rather peculiar 4.39" bore size. So Blair set me up with a different ring package, using dykes rings. I've never used dykes rings before, so it will be interesting to see how the engine works out with them. For those who are not familiar with dykes rings, they use a narrowed down inner ring profile to reduce the ring tension, while still leaving a fairly wide ring area on the cylinder wall. Here's a photo of one of the rings, showing this unique cross section:
A few weeks ago, Woody Owens contacted me about an FE crank spacer with a built in gilmer drive pulley for the FE, available from Aviad. I had never seen one before. It didn't dawn on me when I was emailing Woody that I could maybe use something like that to run the Peterson external oil pump I need to fit on the engine. After looking at the picture that Woody sent, I decided to call Aviaid and order one. Here's a photo:
This spacer puts the oil pump drive out of the way, back behind the harmonic balancer. It has 26 teeth. I like it because it will make the mounting of the oil pump on the engine much more compact.
I'm planning to finish up the water pump spacer machining this weekend and get to work on mocking up the short block to check for p-v clearance. Should be fun...
