The last kit I got from David Kee had the plastic thrust washers.  I tried to contact him a few months ago about some parts and no answer.  Multiple calls, left a message, and no response.  Tried to order on website and no luck.  It was last winter when the power went out in Texas so I figured I would wait a couple weeks till power was back on things were back to normal and still no way to contact them and no return phone call so  I bought the parts from Dan Williams who was more than happy to do business with me.  Anybody bought stuff from David Kee recently?  Did they suffer from the winter storms?
JWR

Update - Crisis adverted.  All tests were positive, compression, and borescope.  The only issue that concerned me was the oil on top of piston #8.  I inspected the valve seals visually as much as I could see and poked them with a screwdriver to see if they were still soft and pliable and they were.  I figured if I had an oil consumption problem, running it would not hurt it and I would see the smoke.   I then put the plugs back in, started it up and took it for a ride.  I did put a new radiator cap on though.  No noises, no smoke, no skipping.  plenty of power.  So I put some more miles on it yesterday.  30 miles and still runs fine.  More "testing" today!!!  Thank you everyone for your help!
JWR

I am looking to the experts here for a little advice.  I have been lurking here for years as I assembled my 428.  Things did not go well this past weekend.  I finally finished my 70 Mach 1 and got it registered and it was time to take it for its first ride.  The 428 was run on the dyno at my local machine shop and it ran great with no issues.  In any event, for the first test drive, I headed down the road about three miles.  All was working great, good oil pressure, normal temp.  I turned around and headed back home but I hit the throttle a little and took off.  Little did I know at the time, a freeze plug popped out and I lost all coolant.  About half mile down the road I noticed the temp starting to rise.  I continued home, but the temp kept climbing and it started to knock.  I made it home the 2.5 miles home not knowing I had lost all coolant as the temp gauge was not in any coolant any more.  In hindsight, not a good decision.  I let it cool off for a few hours and did some troubleshooting and found the freeze plug missing.  Car seems to run ok,  I changed the oil and oil pressure is still great, but I'm worried so I pulled the plugs and stuck a borescope in all 8.  Piston tops all look good.  Cylinder walls all still show crosshatching with no vertical lines.  Of course it is all magnified with the borescope I used so little things look big.  There were some brown spots in cylinder 4 and oil in cylinder 8.  Cylinder 6 looked like it might have had oil in it too, not much though.  Compression is between 160 and 180 on all 8.  This seems like a big spread to me.  Should I pull the heads for a better look and replace the head gaskets?  What causes the freeze plug to pop out?  I did use the 1 49/64" brass plugs.  I hadn't planned on driving 6 miles before I had to tear it down again.  What to do next???
Thanks
Jack
70 Mach 1

410

I have a May 1970 428 block - No ribs
JWR

First Run 175 HP
Second Run 195 HP

You may want to think about replacing all the rockers.  Aluminum unlike steel will get weaker and weaker as it is loaded and unloaded until failure.  Steel has an endurance limit where it reaches a certain strength and does not get weaker with repeated loading.  Many parts are designed so that the load is always less than the endurance limit strength so they do not fail.  You do not have that luxury with Aluminum.  The rest of the rockers will start to break too as a previous poster has mentioned.
JWR

Just an update, I took the block to the Machine shop and had them measure it first.  I asked them if it could be decked to 10.160.  Machine shop called today with the following measurements, confirming that the drivers side deck is .008" higher than the passenger side.
Front Pass side 10.164
Rear Pass side 10.165
Drivers side front 10.173
Drivers side rear 10.173
Machine shop said it can deck it to 10.160 if I wish.  This should bring my deck clearance to .012-.014.  Should I ask them to go more, less, or ok at 10.160?
Thanks,
Jack