Hey John,
I don't have the working relationship with Victor that you do. I can get them, but I have to pay full price. It used to be a friend owned the store in Milton, he would cut me deals, but his son was killed flying an airplane, he lost interest, and sold back to the company. Now, I have to deal with a company store, the advantage is I can go to will call at the Nitro warehouse, and get parts same day, but I have to pay. The 'Warehouse' facility burnt down in Huntington 3 or 4 years ago, they just have an order facility now, and ship in, it takes a couple of days, so if I need it, sometimes it is better to just pay. At Milton Motor Supply we used Mccord, but about the same time as the race track opened back up, Warehouse started handling Fel-Pro, and that worked good for us, the race car guys like Fel-Pro, and there is a specialty line for them, but after Woodyard had his heart attack, we had to close the shop, I didn't have time to run it, he couldn't. Advance had hurt the business, too, they were selling heads and engines cheaper than we could rebuild them, but I don't think too highly of their machine work, not finished good enough for me. Dustin Casdorph bought the equipment, and he helps me out, he is a dirt track guy, and stays fairly busy with race engines. The drawback is we had an old broach that I dearly love to use, I milled thousands of heads on it, and you know how a guy can get attached to a favorite machine. Dustin likes the Winona mill, and never hooked up the broach, so.... We used the Winona on aluminum only, that is what we had it for, now I have to change cutters for iron, but it does do a good job, just takes a little longer to set up. I did get some valves that we made work, me brother, Jim, reworked some 166 or 188 IH diesel valves. He started a how-to article, I finished it, used that good old Peterson machine, basically, we are showing how a member can take that info to a machine shop, and make a drop in replacement, but it is a little pricey. Those are stainless valves, my cost was $14.50 each, before machining them. Jim just joined at the WGT and is really taking an interest in our association, I'll take all of them like him that I can get! His next project is getting to work on getting us some trademarks, for our name and logos, he was working on that the other day. Oh, do you know where I might find a core GMC blower that would fit on a 455 Buick? Jim is President of a club called 'Roadmaster', they are putting a 455 Buick in a MGB, to exhibit, I told him I would look around the scrapyards to see if I could find an old blower that would work, it doesn't need to be for go, show is good enough, that car should have plenty of go, as is. But, it would be neat to polish up an old blower to stick out of the hood. You did make a typo that threw me for a loop, 'Vitor', I thought you had come up with something I didn't know about.
Take care!!!
Andy