dhd@hou4b.UUCP (D.H.Dawdy) (12/19/84)
Before I make a practical observation, I'd like to respond to a recent statement about judging an engine's age: since the components are very likely impossible to base age upon, especially if a tear-down isn't done, I'd guess the block would be the main criteria since there is a way of finding the month and year of manufacture from stampings on the block. Who (what agency) will go to that kind of trouble though? Those stampings are not always in the most convenient places. It would seem to me that superficial components carry the weight of whether or not the car is challenged for violations. Case in point: the 305 and 350 Chevy engine blocks are identical externally, yet without tearing down the 350 or observing the difference in performance, who could tell? Most if not all the accessories that go with the 305 bolt up to the 350. There is plenty that can be done to the exhaust, the emissions tuning and the external appearance to make the 350 pass for a factory 305 (there is an outfit that does exactly that on new Z28s, and the performance increase is incredible; but when the hood goes up you'd swear the engine had come from the factory). The point is that if you are considering a performance upgrade, an engine build-up would probably create much fewer headaches than finding a different size block to install in it's place (not to mention the price or finding and swapping the correct pieces that go with it). I recently started an engine swap on my car (a 1970 Pontiac GTO with the 400 cu. in. engine that really left something to be desired in the performance department). The engine I decided to swap in was a performacne Chevy 350. On the surface, with only a little investigation, it seemed the choice was ideal, since the GTO and Chevy Chevelle share the same chassis; this means motor mounts would be easy to do and headers for Chevelle will fit, etc. etc. Once the project got underway, though, it became apparent that several things would be a problem: 1) fuel pump location 2) starter location 3) battery location 4) clutch linkage to mention a few. I'm not down on the 350 Chevy, at this point, but if I had to do it over again I would have done a performance build-up on the Pontiac 400. It would have caused the fewest headaches and it would have passed at least visual inspection with no problem.