[Tommy]

David,
I've toyed with the idea of building an engine over the years but never done it. The thing that has kept me from that is countless stories of people who built engines for the first time only to discover that there was some small difference between their particular engine and most other engines from that family. An oiling hole here rather than there or a slot that did or did not belong ends up damaging a freshly built engine when it hits the run stand. If I KNEW I had all the correct specs for my particular engine I could follow instructions and do it comfortably. But there are so many variations depending on when, where and for what purpose each engine was built that I find the risk too high.

If I expected to build more than one engine I'd be willing to learn on the first one. But if I'm only going to do this once, I'll let someone who's done it before do it.