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Blueprinting basics

3 October, 2025

Just building your engine the way it was supposed to be will unleash smooth power and longevity, then you can port and polish to gain even more
By Jim Richardson

Make sure your engine’s heads and decks are ground flat while the engine is down

You occasionally hear petrol heads tossing around the term ‘blueprinting’ when referring to an engine they have assembled, and have sometimes altered significantly.
What they are probably trying to say is that their engine was carefully machined to optimum tolerances and balanced — probably for racing. But that isn’t what the term meant originally. You see, in the 1950s  when US stock car race cars really had to be stock, the racing teams would go to the factories and rummage through the parts bins until they found components that were closest in tolerance to the original blueprint developed by the engine’s designers.

Install clutch and vibration damper on the crankshaft when you balance it

Producing the best possible engine
They did that because carefully assembling such components would produce the best possible engine, given the original configuration. It worked well, and you can do the same today. Start by finding a good machine shop. And even though you are building a stock engine for a classic, consider the specialty shops that build racing engines to machine your motor. Their services will cost more, but the speed freaks are used to working to exact tolerances.
Also, any engine will benefit from having its rotating assembly balanced. When the pistons and connecting rods weigh exactly the same as one another, and the crankshaft counter-balance weights are drilled or filled to precisely offset the weight and mass of the pistons and connecting rods, the engine will run smoother, rev higher, and last longer.

Weigh each piston and rod to make sure they are all the same

Some good tricks
Don’t forget to take along the flywheel, clutch, and clutch plate, as well as the vibration damper, when you have your engine’s rotating assembly balanced. The flywheel and clutch should always be balanced, and in some cases, the vibration damper should be too. Once everything is properly balanced at the machine shop, you’ll be amazed at how smooth your old engine will idle, and how little — even at high rpm — it will vibrate. 
Another trick that can really make a power difference without doing anything to alter your engine’s appearance is to clean up its intake and exhaust ports. Just cleaning out the roughness and slag in the ports will make a big difference to your engine’s performance. It takes time, plus a high-speed grinder and some abrasive rolls to do it, but it is worth the trouble. The point isn’t to make the ports bigger as much as it is to clean them up to eliminate turbulence. If you want to see how this is done, Google YouTube and type in ‘porting heads for power’ by Jim Richardson.
In addition to removing slag and surface roughness, you can open the valve throats (also called pockets) and clean up and open the port runners to match the openings in the gaskets for additional power. Nothing you can do to most production engines will increase performance as much as pocket porting its heads. But I suggest you practice on a scrap head before you attempt it, or have a good machine shop do the job for you.

When you reassemble your engine, it pays to use new studs and bolts

Valves
Another trick that can help your engine perform better is to do a valve job with a three-way cut.
Start with good-quality valves that can take unleaded, and if required, go to insert valve seats, and have your machinist do a three-way cut to seat the valves. This reduces drag right where it is the biggest problem, and enhances power. The cost is not much greater than a regular valve grind and is worth the trouble.
When assembling the connecting rods and mating the heads to the block, as well as the manifolds to the engine, use new bolts because your old ones may well have been stretched to their elastic limit. Also, when mounting heads to blocks, studs are a better way to go. Studs and nuts have a lot more clamping ability, and they can be torqued in place more evenly because when you tighten a nut on a stud, you aren’t twisting and clamping the stud and nut at the same time, the way you would with a bolt. ARP makes top-quality bolts and studs, and I recommend them highly.
Never use ordinary hardware store bolts when assembling an engine.

Measuring the crankshaft journals to make sure they are correct

NZ Classic Car magazine, November/December 2026 issue 408, on sale now

18 October, 2026

Star status for classic Porsche
A long search ends: finding the right car
Unveiled at the Frankfurt Motor Show in 1963, the Porsche 911 heralded an iconic lineage of sports cars, known for their exceptional performance, remarkable racing reliability, and adaptability, second to none.
New Zealand Classic Car, in conjunction with Star Insure, recently conducted a photo competition to find 13 suitably impressive classics to grace the pages of the magazine’s 2027 calendar. A flood of entries showed that Kiwis recognise eye-catching designs and restorations. Many are handy with a camera, too, and have entered some outstanding results.
The choice was not straightforward, with multiple stunning entries, and Geoff Long’s immaculate 1990 Porsche 911 (964 Factory designation) took top honours. Fortunately, Geoff had Ethan Hanlon handy to take the accompanying photos while working in his office.
“I’ve got a young employee who is doing work experience in my office at the moment, and he’s a very avid photographer. So, I said, I’ll buy you breakfast and then why don’t we go and take some photos. He found the right spot, and he spent over an hour photographing.”
Originally sold new in Japan, hence the right-hand drive, the Porsche was resident there for four years before being exported to New Zealand, as Geoff recalls.
“I bought it two-and-a-half years ago, but I looked for it for over two years, because it’s just the colour scheme, interior and exterior I was after. The service file that came with it is extensive; I mean, it’s been beautifully looked after, which is what I wanted to continue, as it does get driven. It doesn’t sit in the garage.”

Classics on the green

16 October, 2026

Many pretenders vie for the title, but the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance gets my vote as the biggest thing since sliced bread.
The 71st edition of the world’s pre-eminent and best-known concours event featured 28 classes, judged by a 180-strong jury, which also chose the recipients of 26 special awards.
The size of the event, the number of visitors, and, most mind-numbingly, the sheer number of amazing cars, is almost overwhelming. There are so many quality cars to gaze upon, and so many people gazing at those cars, that it is almost impossible to cover everything.
Notable among the many attractions were the centenary celebrations of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, an elegant Talbot-Lago Grand Sport, Hermann Graber’s Swiss-bodied cabriolets and coupés, the jewels of Otto Vu Italian V8s, early Alfa Romeos, Lincoln and its centenary, and cars with unorthodox propulsion systems.