Quote Originally Posted by Rambozo View Post
I've welded a lot of Battens and you're right they seem to be cast from what gets swept up off the foundry floor. That's why I guessed you might be welding up a set. I bet some of our old race heads were more weld than original casting. I remember one where the whole corner of the head broke out through a chamber and exhaust port to a couple of head bolt holes. I basically had to rebuild up the entire corner with a few chunks of new material and pounds and pounds of welding rod.

That is a tough location to weld in. But with the guides pressed out you do have some room, and you can work from both sides, by putting the torch through the intake port. You can make up a flush back cap to get a lil more room, and there is a super short reverse collet body, too. Since it sounds like the area is thin, the low power of a 24 torch will probably be fine, too. That is one advantage of hand porting over CNC, you can hear how thick the walls are by the sound.

I used to work for Dave Smith back in the day when we had the worlds quickest Olds Pro Stock with the national record and AHRA world title.
Havnt heard the Dave Smith name in many moons !! He did some pretty amazing stuff with the Olds. We are running all small block stuff using the Olds NasCar blocks. I one in the works for a friend out of Sweden, 427" with twin 76mm turbos in a NasCar block going into a 25.1E 68 Cutlass looking for 2100-2200 HP out of this one.
I think I will get a 24 torch and give it a shot.