50 Mile Test Run with the New Head

Last week I changed the head on the Red Chev due to a couple of burnt out valves.  http://my28chev.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/head-job-for-red-chev.html

Today (Sunday 11th March) was the first opportunity to give it a decent run. If you read the original posting you would have seen that I put a "test " head on the block to see if the bottom end was OK while I had the original head reconditioned. With the "test" head so far running OK, its still on the car  with the reconditioned head in the spares cupboard.

Anyway I headed down to a favorite coffee shop of the Red Chev, Kelly's Cafe in Chelsea, a bay side suburb of Melbourne. I kept off the freeway, used main and back roads, driving up to 45 mph, with the total distance covered being 50 miles.

Engine ran great and seems to have good amount of power. Tappets were a bit noisy, and when I got home adjusted them for about the 4th time. Sounded a lot quieter after that. I run my valves 2 thou up on standard settings.

I am trying a mixture of 1 litre of diesel per tank of gas for 2 reasons. The first being a good upper cylinder lubricant (where previously  I used 100ml of Flash lube) and the second and most important, it lowers the temperature in the combustion chamber. It should help to protect the original specification 28 valves the test head is running.

When I returned home apart from adjusting the valves, I lowered the idle speed which was a bit fast and while I had the plugs out to adjust the valves checked the compression. All seemed OK at 62 to 65 psi across all cylinders.