Joe, are you going to an NHRA sanctioned event, or does your local track just check that stuff pretty closely? I'm just curious how strict they are on Certs. What about bellhousings, dampers etc?

I'll play
605 hp

I'm wondering why he would have went with a MLS gasket on an N tractor with 6:1 compression ratio? There's an excellent FelPro gasket for about $25 that needs no sealer and works very well. I replaced the radiator on my '50 8N about a year ago, and figured since the hood/tank was already off, might as well do the 75 year old HG too. The original gasket was in perfect condition and if you were a farmer needing to get going, could have been put back on and run. Took about an hour to install the FelPro, only because I took the time to chase the threads on the studs

That's the gasket that came with the kit that was purchased. While the rest of the gasket kit seems typical, and well made, I felt the same way about the MLS gasket. The old head gasket was definitely not usable after removing. For starters, the tractor had sat outside for years and the head would not release with all the stud nuts removed, so I had to drive a thin scraper blade between them around the circumference of the head to get it off. Beyond that, the gasket was not in good shape even without that damage. I thought about getting the Felpro, but I didn't see the need to spend more of his money, and this one should be fine as long as it seals.

That's what I remember people using. I guess when something works, you don't mess with it. Thanks, Brent.

FYI, Summit had it, but shipping more than doubled the cost. Amazon was basically the same price, with free shipping.

I'm not sure how you have your fuel pump setup or if it's electric, I set mine up with a manual switch so I can shut them off and run the fuel bowls dry before long storage.  This has seemed to help quite a bit.

Absolutely the best way to do it....drain the fuel. I was a campus mechanic at a university and had over 120 pieces of gas and diesel equipment to deal with. Everything from weed eaters to fleet cars to tractors. Winter storage for the summer equipment got to be a headache come springtime when it was time to use them again (and vice versa), especially on small equipment that has extremely small orifices. I tried Stabil, Seafoam and a few others...and nothing worked good enough to stop the issues. It only stopped when I would drain all the summer stuff and make sure there wasn't any fuel left in them. It was a PITA, but saved me major headaches come spring. Since alot of small equipment has fuel shutoffs, that was easy to do on them; shut the fuel off and run until they died. Others had to be physically drained, then ran until they died. On a Holley with a mechanical pump, just remove a bottom bowl screw and drain each bowl.

The only stable fuel I've found is aviation or race gas. I mix it 50/50 in my Mach and I have yet to have a problem after sitting over the winter. It's a 110LL, so the lead probably helps in that matter. The several times I've removed a bowl for checking, they are always clean.

My point was that if the plugs looked good at the 10:1 reading, and the engine was running better than it ever had, indicating the wide band is not reading correctly, then that 12.5-13:1 reading may be dangerously lean. Lean can really hurt an engine, and since you can't always hear it if the exhaust is reasonably loud, you don't want to be driving it that way.

Anyone ever wonder why the intake is part of the head? Was an SAE paper back around 1958 where Ford said having the intake extend further into the head allowed more control over the port shape and resulted in better cold start performance.  It all was for a reason, we just don't know the why and of course if the reasoning was right or instead driven by what was believed to be right at the time. Sort of like cross drilled cranks and windowed blocks...

In the magazines that I have from '58 covering the "new" Ford engines, Ford had learned that longer port lengths had multiple benefits, like added torque, good street manners, and easier starting, as opposed to the very short runner lengths of the Y-blocks. It was a clever design for the time. As big as those cars were, the engines sat up relatively high and barely cleared the hoods even with low rise intakes, so the FE intake solved the problem of adding runner length without adding height.

Tins and valley trays certainly had their uses back in the day. All of us old farts who have taken apart old engines knows that coking under the intake can be a real problem, and that was the reason for using intake pans that covered the crossovers, as well as valley trays. Remember, people were still using non-detergent oils and running these engines daily in mixed hot and cold climates. I believe Ford also knew that oil return in the head was an issue that crept up. We're talking about mass produced engines that didn't exactly have a perfect return path for the oil in the head to begin with. "Cleaning up" the return isn't an option when it requires hand work. Not on a mass production level. For the average "home" builder, using stock parts that aren't modified, I still think they are a good idea. For hot rodders that modify their stuff to make it better, not so much.