The head yes as long as you drill the steam holes in the head. Those 261 motors are like a 400 Chevy. The cylinders are siameased and each pair of cylinders has a pair of steam holes in the block. A real 261 head, which you can also use, has those steam holes already drilled. To use an 848 head on the 261 block you need either the Canadian Pontiac 848 head with the holes already drilled, or you have to drill the 848 head you have. The rub is that they have to be drilled at the correct place (use a 261 head gasket as a template) and at the correct angle (which I forget offhand what that angle is). No to the hydraulic lifters from the 56 unless you are swapping the old cam in (which I myself would not do).
If you are gong to swap the 235 cam in (which I don't actually recommend), make absolute sure you keep the lifters in the proper order as they have to go back onto the cam lobe they came out of. You have a nice new fitted block with nice GM cam bearings installed. Putting a worn 235 cam in runs the risk of low oil pressure from worn cam journals and other issues. You have gone this far, go a little further and use a fresh cam.
So if you are getting a new cam, you will need new lifters, either hydraulic or mechanical (for mechanical use 56-62 truck solid lifters. The 55 lifters are usually the milk bottle style lifters. Nothing inherently wrong with them, but they were designed to be used in a block that is slightly different then the later motors so I use the later style lifters.)
Push rods, you can reuse but again, you want to keep them matched up to the rocker arms they came from primarily because the adjuster balls are now well worn into the push rod cups. That being said, the stock GM push rods are solid rods. They bend easier then the aftermarket push rods and the after market push rods are tube type (and not that expensive to replace.) Rockers, I like rockers in good shape. Shafts that are not galled, new adjuster balls, rocker tips smooth and correctly contoured. I just don't like using old unrebuilt or unreconditioned parts on a new build. It just seems to me to invite unnecessary headaches down the road.
Last edited by Dragsix; 08/22/2019 9:20 PM.
