Well, I've slowly been plucking away at assembling the motor over at 95talonracer's house.
Oil squirters and main bearings in
Checking clearances with the plastigauge. ~.0017 oil clearance on the mains. Spec is .0007-.0020
Crank bolted it. Awesome help by Kerry showing me how to check crank endplay. Ended up being a solid .003. Spec is .002-.007.
Pistons were nasty, but cleaned up pretty nicely. Took forever.
Rod bearings in place
Plastigauge on the rod bearings, ended up being right around .0015-.0017, Spec is 0.0006-0.0030
Checking ring end gap:
.018 top ring
.024 2nd ring
Writing everything down for reference
All bolted in and torqued to spec
Decided to call it a night after that. Front case and BSE is ready to install. Have to track down a rear main seal since the one I got in my gasket kit was wrong. Then I can install the front case, oil pump housing, oil pickup, and rear main seal and oil pan.