The choice between gold and blue galvanizing depends on if you want to paint it, one's better for painting although I don't remember which off the top of my head. It's probably the other one. I could go up to the shed and pop the bonnet but it's cold, dark and rainy outside.

I did look into the 3D printed moulding sand after visiting the advanced manufacturing center at CSIRO in Clayton Victoria a few years ago. It is true that you can print one off sand cast moulds but from memory the cost was in the 1000s.

You may be better off working with a pattern maker. The now retired pattern maker at my work built a mould for a custom triple webber setup for his Cortina. Pretty cool. At least you'll get to use it more than once. An alternative might be 3D printing the mould masters. These would generally be treated with a carbide embedded epoxy since the moulding sand is abrasive. Again, getting a pattern maker involved would save a lot of time/ pain if going the route of casting.

Big and small! Compound turbo it! You get the benefits of the wide boost curve of a low pressure turbo and high boost pressures.

I think there'd be lots of interest if you do do it. It does sound like a fun project.

Would you keep the valves in a row and maintain the existing rocker geometry? Or, would you be going for a Hemi configuration and redoing all of the rocker geometry? Maintaining the existing valve geometry one of the valves will be angled the wrong way. Changing it is also challenging because your push rod position is more or less set.

Sounds like your thinking of making the head in two halves to get the water ports in?

Whatever you decide I'll be following, my projects have stalled since starting a family and taking on a house that needs work....

For the water ports I imagine you'd need to drill them. Straight lines and plugs like an injection moulding tool. If it's bolt on then you've already got plenty of design constraints! Sounds like a mammoth job to me....

That logic is sound. How will you control ignition advance? If you wanted you could use an EDIS and controller with a standard trigger wheel and still go through the distributor but if you're going to all that trouble why not go to a wasted spark set up and get rid of the distributor all together?

The other way around is to get a better distributor or beef up the bit that's wearing out quickly. I assume it's a plain bush bearing. Can you make it longer? Can you try different bushing materials? There are some excellent modern polymeric bearing materials around. If you're super lucky an Igus bearing might fit straight in.

I use EDIS and Megasquirt, rock solid and completely programmable.

Could be tolerance stack up I guess if they're mint, standard struts (tube ID on the minimum diameter and the insert OD on the maximum diameter). One more thought, is the tight strut a bit out of round?

I'd be checking whether that strut is damaged/ dented/ defective in some way. Might have a bend in it if it's had a real hard knock.

Nice one!

The latter. Every extra unique part is extra cost/ complexity so it only goes in if it has to.