awesome! I appreciate the info. Yes, I plan to get the rebuilt collar & fork.
If the ultimate IH fourbanger moves forward, I'm planning that, too. Gotta sii 196e on the stand, and two 152s (with one al intake manifold). Would like to know whether better to weld crank for the bbc rods, or get rods for the IH crank. Also, where would I source pushrods? Sorry, off topic, I'll repeat in an appropriate thread later. But we're paying attention... Lol
Alotta my "personal" projects have been put on hold due to on again/off again/on again interruptions in our income stream. The Scout 80 stroker project is just a toy and toys appear way down at the bottom of the list in times like these.
Robert and I have talked about the rod/piston sitch several times, there are options. I lean on Robert for his technical expertise regarding this kinda stuff since he's deeply involved in building high-end performance engines.
I think we ended up agreeing on a particular chev piston and a particular chev rod, and those are much less dinero when purchased in sets of eight. That way we can split the cost since he's playing with a similar motor also.
I hope to move forward with the engine build in the next few months. I now have a donor motor for the head (at least I hope it's the right set!). I May pull these heads and bust 'em down next week and deliver to the machine shop for cleaning and crackcheck before spending any additional time on the prep work.
If the head(s) check out, then we have an associate who is going to hog it out, that will be done before the final valve work in case any other problems bite us on the ass.
In your case (and mine), using the oem 152 pushrods is the answer. We still have a plentiful supply of reconditioned welded rocker pushrods on hand. It is the boat rocker pushrods that have been taken out of production, those were still available to us new until a few months ago.
We have two suppliers that can produce any pushrod for us that we spec. We're working on scrounging our entire inventory of pushrods together in one place now so we can make a projection regarding having this stuff made exclusively for ihon for the future.
I'll be using a ultra-nice nine stand welded rocker assembly in my build, I have all the internal parts prepped now and set aside except for the crank core and the cam. Robert will spec the cam once the shortblock is assembled and he sees the results of the head cut.