Installing Heads

Original 289 HiPo heads, as indicated by the 289 with two dots above.  White paint mark in the center is an original inspection mark.  These were cleaned and assembled with NOS and original Ford script valves that were "re-hard chromed" as they were originally, but now to suit guide clearance.  Retainers are also original 289 HiPO.  I chose not to install bronze guides, everything is as it was when original.  Some might push for bronze guides, like I have done on other cars, but these Hipo heads from this period are so rare that I would not want to do anything to modify them.  On top of that the bronze guides are really not necessary, given the amount of mileage this car is likely to get, or get some fuel additive that does the work that leaded gas supposedly did back in the 60s.  I know plenty of guys that have original un-restored heads and they are working just fine after more than 50 years of service.

The biggest issue I had with installing these heads were the rocker arms.  First, it was a pain to find a complete set of NOS rocker arms.  Second, once I was able to cobble together a complete set, as I went through checking rocker geometry, I found several that weren't landing in the middle of the valve tip.  So I had to GO AND FIND MORE!!!  Finally, I was able to get everything just right with initial cold lash set (I'll adjust "final" hot lash after initial run in).  This was necessary because with these vintage rocker arms there are slight variations in the rocker arms (like the contact area of the tip not being symmetric or level with the valve tip).  Anyways, it took several weeks to finally get all the parts, get everything installed and geometry set. Here what I got finally, where pattern pretty well centered from inside to outside of head on the valve tip.  Just can't get any better than this with old school solid lifters and solid rocker arms (non-roller type).

Here's an example of one of the rocker arms while going through the process of checking geometry.

Setting cold lash.