Hey guys, with all the snow storms been coming home and dealing with the 400.
That being said and the title, I have not had the pleasure of having to run different length pushrods. So this evening I took one of my old roller lifters from a windsor, gutted it and got it to sit at installed height locked no plungering action, put on my 7/8"x2' light weight valve springs. Set a MLS(pro-comp PC5212) head gasket and put the head(trick flow power port 195) down on the deck put the adjustable pushrod in marked valves and just hand tightened 4 head bolts, no ratchet. On goes rocker arm and adjust away get it centered on stem and lock it down, Rotate, check re-mark valve repeat until mark stays clean in center of valve.
The trick flow heads call for longer than stock pushrods so longer than 9.5", I am running a retro fit style small base circle roller cam so I can run OE lifters(windsor rollers) they call for 8.903". The length I got that was in a happy place was 9.1875".
Here is where I am in a spot, I know the head will compress down more, but I need to check piston to valve clearance also so I know go buy clay and check it, after looking to see if that length is even out there closest I came was 9.165 or 9.200", am I set to try to make that work?

After talking to the guy that will be tuning the EEC on the truck my need for the 96 5.8L 4 post tone ring harmonic balancer is not needed. told me easier to just remove its needs in tuning. So being this thing will not see anything over 5500rpm(even that is a stretch with shift points). Looking at some 351C places guys talking about their old iron coming apart, better off buying a new over having my old one rebuilt? or just their pushing their C's to high rpm beyond what it is capable of handling? I have not seen much other than dayco bought out a harmonic balancer company in Australia and is labeling the product as their own now. rebuild? or buy new OE? upgrade?

As pics have shown I am running a set of 351m/400 to 351w intake manifold adapters that are pretty nice but the surface between valley pan plate and intake adapters is just a flat surface that hylomar will be used in that has the capability of failure. anyone that ran the 351m/400 to 351c adapters or anything ever try to run a valley pan gasket?

Thanks guys, I appreciate it.
Curtis