Learn me reverse engineering, specifically machined and cast parts.

This guy has some good casting videos and he does a lot of automotive based projects:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSTKBcCz9pD_MC0l_ZarxhA/videos

Not meant to side track or taking anything away from the OP, this is just good watching. 

My 0.02

In reply to NOHOME :

When it comes to things that I'm doing for me, I have a bad tendency to overthink, overplan, and overbuild whatever I'm working on.

Early in my engineering classes I built a hitch-mounted support so I could throw my 12' aluminum boat in the bed of my truck, hang an outboard from the support, and be able to open the tailgate at the same time.  A couple years later when I knew more of what I was doing I did some basic FEA of it and got a conservative Factor of Safety of 20+ on it.

I'm not trying to sandbag, I just prefer to start with an outline of the basics of my plan and have a conversation about it.  No preconceived notions for the readers so i can get as wide a range of ideas as possible. That way when I have a fully fleshed out plan at the end I know it's the best available for me because its looked at all avenues available and kept the good stuff while separating the things that wouldn't work in my situation. 

In reply to Mr_Asa :

Let me know when you want to work on a high compression Model T head. 

NOHOME said:

Wish people would toss this kind of context out when starting the thread. The sandbagging does not help focus replies.

How much help should people really need focusing their own replies to straight forward questions whose answers are unchanged by the context?

Mr_Asa said:

What would you say, "a hundred thou"? That doesn't make sense to me, so I dont use it.

I'm not a machinist so I don't speak like a machinist.  Doesn't mean I'm incompetent. 

Just as a note, a machinist in America working in inches would refer to 0.1" as "a hundred thou," since the "base unit" of measurement around the shop is generally .001" aka "a thou."   Once you get familiar with the parts, dimensions, and people you're working with, you'll shorten it to "a hundred," the thou is implied.

 Fueled was just trying to be helpful.  Because you weren't using the language, he was speaking out of concern, not condesension..