>>>*Yep! Smokey Yunick was about the first to actually accomplish 1 h/p per inch a bit before that. At least with natural aspiration designs, anyway. Long drawn out story attached to that one, it had to do with airflow and a glovebox door...

Those were the good old days, factories building cars that were faster with the jockey box open.... <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/lol.gif" alt="" />....*EB

Thanks for the advice and input, Ted. I'd started putting pieces together and figured I'd be good to go with just about whatever I decided. I settled on some Clevites...not only because of materials and reputation, but gee...I could get them the next day. I'll be picking them up this afternoon. Finally found some at a machine shop 30 miles from mi casa. And! the guy is easy to deal with. Not that there aren't other sources just as easy, but ease of transaction speeds things up.

Anyway, to piggy back on my own little thread...
I found some delamination (the metal ring around the hole for cylinder #1 right near a water jacket hole) happening on the headgasket...original from factory....that appears to be from the head crawling around. I read on 4crawler's page a while back about him having installed studs for the head as opposed to bolts. Would studs...or anything else...minimize this kind of thing from happening? Also, at Yotatech, someone had quoted a procedure you'd shared for torquing down the head. It was more detailed and a bit different from the FSM procedure. I'd like to follow that advice you gave, but I can't seem to find it in a search over there. It was quote from a thread by someone other than you had started and I don't remember the subject title nor the author. Does this ring a bell at all? I'll keep trying to find it, but so far my keywords turn up alot of other things I'm not looking for.

I found a couple of threads that you'd explained the "slip plate"/steel backing, so that helps a bit. Well, maybe more so next time I have to remove/install the head.....I already bought a Fel-Pro (Fed-Mog?). But, I still can't find the procedure...or anything more about the studs. Except that you'd recommended a performance gasket for the performance studs.

Bump.... <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/cyclops.gif" alt="" />

Hmmm... maybe I ratholed it in the Toyota tech archives here? Go there and open the view in the lower left corner to 'view all' and take a look around.