Starting my engine build

[davepl]

Everyone starts somewhere! Just start slowly, take more notes, more pics, and make sure you've read about what you're going to do from a couple of sources before you do it.

Rebuilding the Small Block Chevy, Chapter 5, Disassembly
How to Rebuild Your Small-Block Chevy: David...
Rebuilding the Small Block Chevy Videobook
Rebuilding the Small-Block Chevy: Step-by-Step...
More advanced than you need, but:
Building Small Block Chevrolet Cylinder Heads
How to Build and Modify Chevrolet Small-Block V-8...
I bet all of these are David Vizard. He wrote a lot of good stuff a long time ago.

These books are all paperback, under twenty bucks, and available for 2-day Prime delivery. No excuses :-) You'll NEED to know the torque sequence, whether you can reuse rocker arms, which head bolts go into cooling jackets, and all kinds of info you need in "bulk" that you couldn't ask one question at a time.

You will need a torque wrench and timing light, and I think you have the latter. If you're anywhere near a major brand parts store, they should rent torque wrenches.

You might need to do the chain, but if it's not a known problem I'd keep your battlefield small and not pull the cam and lifters and chain unless it's really time. We used to take them off and lie them on their side and if they touched they were done, but there's likely a much better way, you'll need to ask.