01-10-10 Motor teardown

I'm waiting on some brackets I'll need to have welded to the frame for the new style door hinges and hood hinge, plus I'm going to have a few other tweaks made on the frame. In the meantime I started tearing apart the 351 to see how things looked inside. Also spend some time gathering up and shipping out some part I'm trading with another builder, my 302 headers for his 351's, and few other miscellaneous bits.

Here it is after stripping off most of the wiring, vacuum, and emission lines...it's starting to look almost recognizeable as a motor. The extra-long runner intake is great for stump-pulling torque down low but doesn't allow for much top-end. Off it goes.

Intake gone and one head pulled to take a look at the condition of the pistons and cylinders.

A thin layer of carbon was flaking off the top of the pistons. Most of it was already lifting and it came off pretty easily.

From what I can see of the cylinder walls on this side, they look fairly good. Crosshatch hone marks still visible, no obvious signs of uneven wear. I'll be taking the whole block into Performance Automotive Machine to let the experts have a look-see. These pistons will likely not be suited to the heads I'll be putting on anyway.