Got a few hours again this morning so made a start.

Again, I'm not a head porter by any means, however looking at what came from the factory, I'm pretty sure I've made an improvement!

Straightened out the ports at the inlet gasket entry.
Removed a few of the casting humps and smoothed around the guides. Decided to leave them full length as this is by no means a performance build. May do bit more, however I was over it for thr morning.

Will clean up the valves, lap them in, and most likely call it a day

Deano, not a real problem on well used heads as the seats have been pounded into hardness to a point. On a rebuilt machined head the only drama you'll get is to adjust the tappets like twice a year instead of once. Having a pinto running on unleaded with 'soft' seats never caused a problem so I'm saying all the propaganda and hype back in the day (1987-92) was rubbish .!

Must admit, porting a cast iron head is tedious, noisy and dirty. My last pinto head i ported I thought to weigh the excess swarf which came to about a kilo, that's the stuff I could reach as a whole load went behind the bench !

You've prolly doubled it's bhp rating just by tidying the ports up😎.
Gimme an alloy head any day, so much easier.

Finished off the head this morning.

It's not fantastic, however certainly a huge improvement over stock. Looking through a few pics of ported kent heads online it seems most if not all tend to have the valve guide removed entirely. I've left it full length however shaped and smoothed it.

Hard to get a good pic. Haven't goon to hard, tried to reshape without hogging out size wise. Finished off with some 60bgrit flap wheels I had. Lapped valves and removed broken stud.

Rings arrived this morning so fingers crossed I've ordered the right size and will have a crack at rebuilding it all tonight or tomorrow morning.

I've already spent waaaaaay too much time on what was supposed to be a rattle can rebuild.

Nice work there, good radius funneling inwards...
Although you might want to get the burrs back out again and rough up those intake ports as polished ports cause fuel drop out and poor driving apparently.
Race car and drags is different story as they are at high revs , no time for fuel drop.. exhaust ports is anything goes..

Hope the rings are correct this time, almost time for engine build therapy lol

Thanks for that. Unfortunately, or rather fortunately, I t looks smoother in the pics than in real life. 60 grit will be fine for surface finish, it's far from polished.

Yep, hoping the rings measure up. Looking forward to hopefully getting it put back together.

Shaun

Been a busy week and struggled to find time to make it out to the shed. Still I'm 95% there.

Started up first go and ran for a bit with a quick spray of brake cleaner so that's encouraging. 👌 Certainly more than incould ever get from it before I pulled it from the car.

I'll hopefully get it back in the wagon and finished off in the next few days.

Fingers crossed, I'll have it running by mid next week.

Shaun.

Excuse the chaos in the shed. It's well and truly due for a tidy up now!

After a short visit in hospital, (damn this getting older business), work and family permitting, I'll hopefully get back into the car later this week.
 
Currently, the engine and gearbox are back in the car, just finding and fitting everything in its place.
 
Still need to track down a MK2 Cortina 7/8" slave cylinder first, so it might not be a driving just yet, however hopefully soon.
 
Shaun

I'm sure you can use a generic trailer M/C for the car, I did that for an Anglia once, $27 at the local trailer heist shop

Unfortunately it's not the master cylinder that's gone but the slave.

It's always something with old cars.

Was hoping to have it running however I found the carb was stuffed. Bought another only to find when it arrived the seller had sent me a mk2 escort one and not a mk2 corty. The linkage is different, different id size and then standard air cleaner won't fit. So.. have try number 3 hopefully in the mail.

At least the engine bay is looking more complete.

Next will be tank flush, getting the brakes finished off, clutch slave and a maiden voyage.

Shaun