1962 Corvette Fuelie - The Return Of "Patti's Daily Driver," Part 1

This close-up photo shows the topside of the valve guide area with a new bronze wall guide insert. Valve stems love bronze much more than cast iron.

Cutting into the exhaust valve seat area is a machine shop professional job. We installed steel inserts so the exhaust valves would not burn due to lack of lead lubrication in today's unleaded gasoline. They say that an engine can only go 40,000 miles or less with no hardened exhaust valve seats before exhaust valves get burnt-causing cylinder mid-firing.

This photo reveals the Comp Cams single "beehive" valve springs and original press-in rocker arm studs that Joe Sherman surfaced to better bite with poly locks. The narrower the spring diameter, the more pressure. It's gradual, so there's no need for a second inner spring or even a high-rpm resonance dampener.

Every 1962 and 1963 fuel injection engine had 461-X heads. Each head has an "X" embossed on the bottom side at both ends. You can't tell anything by looking at the upper side of the head other than the casting number and casting date.

We spent about one hour bead-blasting the connecting rods at Valley Head Service. According to VHS' Larry Ofria, this process not only cleans the metal, but it actually makes the connecting rods stronger. We bead-blasted both heads, too.

Space does not allow us to show you photos of every bare block, crank, rod and head machining process performed. Advice: Do not overlook anything. It could come back and bite you. Our rods were balanced and both ends were mic'd to spec, then honed (shown). All this work lets the engine perform to its maximum potential.

We took this photo to show you how different the top end of balanced rods can often look. Believe it or not, each top rod end weighed exactly the same. Material amount at the upper half of the rod minutely differentiates. You can't actually "see" a size difference, but the S-W balancing machine can.

We masked off the ports, then spray-painted both heads with Chevy orange spray can enamel. We think these heads are happy to be back in service after 38-plus years in storage.

Here is one of the eight Speed-Pro hypereutectic pistons we purchased, part number H660CP, +0.030-inch oversize. They are said to be as rugged as a forged-aluminum piston, but with the minimal expansion qualities of a cast piston. Piston-to-wall clearance is much less, so piston ring "seal" is increased.

Compared to a factory 1962 Corvette 340hp 327 aluminum intake manifold, Joe Sherman says the Edelbrock Performer RPM manifold is 20 hp better due to smoother runner radiuses inside. Increased cylinder filling is what it's all about.

The Edelbrock AFB #1407 is a great street-and-strip carburetor because it has primary metering rods that operate within the primary jets via engine vacuum. The end result is part-throttle fuel metering in the neighborhood of 12 percent richer or leaner, thus allowing better economy with no performance loss. The #7101 has a manual choke and flows 750 cfm, plenty for this 327 engine. We also have this very same induction setup on our 383, 4-speed, '70 Chevelle Malibu.

Joe Sherman liked these 461-X heads so much that he wanted to flow-test them stock-then clean up all port "short side radius" plus minor port casting bumps and lumps. The intake port airflow increased 20 percent. Sherman feels this will add 20 more horsepower.