At the drivers briefing we discussed that it was OK to smooth the weld out on the exhaust manifold ports as the welding could be very variable in quality. We agreed that as long as the ports were not enlarged they could be smoothed to the original diameter of the pipe. So I purchased a second hand manifold off eBay and have used a rotary tool with some cobalt bits to achieve this. It is recommended to braise around the outside of the ports to maintain strength so I need to find someone to do this locally for me.

The brake conversion to allow a brake bias valve and removal of the ABS system is apparently to improve cornering, I hope it does but given the weight of the ABS module and its bracket it will certainly help reduce the weight of the car.

The removal of the ABS unit was straight forward but its bracket has left a few wounds to the knuckles. The steel brake pipes at the rear of the engine bay have been removed and new copper lines run in from the master cylinder to a new T piece that connects to the front brake pipes. A second pipe has been run through the hole the heater cable runs through ready to be connected in to the Bias valve next week.

Sorry for the lack of updates but lapping in valves is a boring enough job when doing it but pictures and talking about it would be even more so. Thank god BL didn’t decide to make the K Series a 24 valve that’s all I can say!

Anyway the head has been skimmed and the valves are re-lapped in, the head is all back together and back on the car with a new ‘original style’ with uprated silicon bead head gasket in place and lashings of my favourite recipe -Well Seal applied too!

The car is all fitted up and started on the button, rev’s fine through to the 8k rev limiter so the timing is OK and we are ready for the next job.

I have ordered some brake line, T piece connectors and a brake bias valve  so this week the original ABS unit, and brake pipes come off…