Thanks for checking in guys, here's that update mike promised.
We got a bunch done tonight
We got the valve train all assembled and adjusted, then it was time to dress this beast. That means it's time for some beauty shots.
Mike is stoked
I think it looks pretty good, got the Edelbrock intake mounted up, plus a chrome water neck and some breathers (one is on a pcv, one is mocked up on a spark plug since the other pcv we had didn't fit that side's valve cover)
It wasn't all smooth sailing though, we used Mr. Gasket brand header bolts to attach the intake, and thanks to a torque wrench/human/bolt team error we ended up with one bolt snapped and one pretty badly rounded off (I'm thinking they may have been defective, but it's also very likely we did something wrong)
Also mike had to modify one of the lift points for the engine so it would play nice with the new intake
After we got those dealt with it was all good, and we're ready to start playing with the trans, then fabbing up some mounts to get this thing in the car.