Don Terrill’s Speed-Talk

601 casting 305 head...it came off a flat top 350 out of a roundy round car that swallowed the air cleaner stud. That cylinders intake valve was bent slightly , and the pieces of the stud that made those 2 indention's was imbedded in the cast piston...but interestingly enough the piston wasn’t cracked.

I’m considering using these on a low $$$ 350, but I know these are thin and couldn’t be milled much.

No problem, I would run it. I have run much worse.

Paul

Was it just me, or did anyone else think nothing of the tick marks and immediately go to how the head needed a proper valve job?

No problem running that thing at all. Zero hesitation.

No problem with the "dents" but make sure that it didn't push the whole chamber in a little bit. Run a stone across it to make sure it is flat unless you plan on surfacing them anyway. I had a set of 350 Vortecs with similar damage a couple of months ago and had to cut almost .005 off them to get them flat in the are where they were dented.

Thanks guys. They will get a light surface cut and a “proper” valve job

No problem, run it!
But do get a air cleaner wing nut with the Nylock lock incert in it, or run a thick diameter ( big pound test) section of fishing line thru your current wing nut to act like a Nylock type .
Just tie it up to the air cleaner stud and it will always be there to use.

You can even use shards of big enough nylon roap that we all seem to have about!

This mod is such a simple way to get worn non high load , high temp usage threads to grab again it blows my mind, thanks again Grandpa for passing it on all those years ago before we had Loctite!

I have seen far, far worse run like nothing happened.

If you want to buff a turd, you could deburr the edges with a sanding roll or brown cookie, but that would be something you are doing for you and not for the engine.

Re: carb studs and wingnuts. What we did (circle track racer forever) was use all-thread with loctite AND a jamb nut on the carb end of the stud, then put the air cleaner on, then put on a wing nut made of all nylon, no brass/steel insert, hard to screw on the whole way (some cheap aftermarket one we got from the free bin at work, maybe dorman?). The stud or wingnut falling off was such a common occurrence that every spring at least a couple of "new" guys would pull into the pits after practice with the air cleaner missing.

Run a nut down the bolt after getting the bolt/nut tight on carb, use a double nutted w/locktite after placing air cleaner and tightening down until filter element is snugly in place, then remove wingnut and filter to locktite the jammed nuts, reinstall filter and lid and tighten wing nut down tight which shouldn't loosen now as jammed tight together unlike when no nut to jam against so can loosen up.

We have the Ford oval wing nut which jams tight on end of bolt but I use the dbl locknut setup and never has loosened, but this is on a drag race internally balanced 412 engine.

I bought too many air cleaners too. I made my own nut and stud on a lath from scrap 70 series aluminum. No tools needed and it provides some smoothing of air flow.
I machined a register/shoulder on the top of the stud .060 below the lid stack height for the nut to tighten onto and included a O-ring on the bottom of the nut to provide resistance to vibrating off. I made the threads a 80 percent for added resistance and compensate for wear.
Its distracting racing for the lead and watching the air cleaner dance around.

To the OP, engine blows up happen a lot and it seems the heads always get hit with something. It's quite common too have dents in the quench pad and has never posed a problem.