Ram Air IV Service Replacement Block
 

I am trying to determine the value of my 1970 400 RA IV SR block . #9799915, A072 casting date. It is .030 over with round bores, no rust and was running when removed from my TA.
Thanks!

I don't think there's any way to nail down how much someone would pay who has a on going restoration of a IV car and needs a block.

The reply's you get will likely be like opinions and A holes!

As stated, if you find someone who needs it today for their restoration it could command a higher price but timing is everything. Your best bet is decide what you need to get out of it and price it accordingly and see if it sells. Other option is to toss on EBAY with a ridiculous reserve and see what it gets bid up to.. God knows there are a ton of people doing exactly that. I would opt for the first just because I feel it is better for the hobby. Just by listing your question I'm sure you will be getting inquires offers from members anyway.

As others have said, it's most valuable to someone restoring a '70 Ram Air IV car. That value is depending upon how desperate the vehicle owner is and how much they're willing to pay. It should have good value though.

I have been collecting info from service replacement blocks for quite some time so if you have pics, I'd love to add the SR8 number, the cast date, the casting number, and 4-bolt caps to my electronic collection!

We've sold several RAIV SR blocks in the past few years.
 

They have extra value because so many of the original RAIV blocks were lost when these cars were newer and those stupid cast connecting rods exited the block while the owner's were having some fun. It's kind of sad that Pontiac didn't have the SD455 style rod in full production a couple of years earlier..... Then a lot more of the RAIV cars would have original blocks in them.

Does your block have the actual 'as-cast' 9799915 casting number or are one or more of the numbers ground off and stamped? With the 1972 casting date, I'd presume the whole number is ground and stamped.

A 9799915 block that has an 'as-cast' casting number should bring fairly huge money. $5k plus to the right person.

We sold another SR block with the 979991_5_ casting where just the last digit was ground off and restamped less than a year ago. +.030, round bores, good, straight main bore, early 1970 casting date. $4500.

Sold another about two years ago where the entire 9799915 casting number was ground off and restamped. +.060 with one sleeve. I think that casting date was in late 1971. $3700.

And, finally, just for reference, sold a 9792506 1969 Ram Air IV SR block with the '2506' ground and stamped. +.030 but had a couple of bores that needed to be honed due to taper. early 1970 casting date. $4000.

Good luck with yours!

RA IV SR Pictures
 

Here are two of the pictures Rocky asked for.

Thanks!

If the number is completely stamped, which it is here (and I suspected it was by the cast date) then it was originally a typical 481988 400 block that was machined to accept 4-bolt caps and stamped 9799915 for the SR applications for the parts department.

For the record, an original 9799915 block wasn’t constructed any differently than the typical 9799914. The only difference was 4 bolt main caps.

Can you tell if there are any cast numbers on the main caps on your SR block?

First of all, are we sure it has the 4 bolt caps? That’s the biggest question in my mind. SR blocks are the easiest to fake. Real simple to grind the original casting number down on a 72 SR block and claim it’s a IV OR III replacement.

9799914 and 9799915 blocks used the same main caps. They also used unique hardware. I’d wanna see the bolts AND the casting number on the FRONT cap as people all the time swap the 4 bolt caps out but few know that the front is also different. If and ONLY IF all that is correct for a ram air block then maybe the value is there. Most IV owners will rather have a correctly coded original block for their car over a SR block. Because SR blocks are so easily faked many tend to shy away from em for that very reason. It’s kind of a last option. What are they gonna do, claim their original block was destroyed and replaced under warranty? If so they might as well restamp a block and claim its original. A BS story is a BS story. In my opinion if the block is probably 1500-2k. Standard bore 4 bolt blocks should bring 2k to someone wanting to build a high HP motor. It’ll cost ya 1k plus to buy Program 4 bolt mains and have em installed on a 2 bolt block. Just my opinion.

I need to qualify when I said 14 and 15 blocks used the same main caps I meant 4 bolt ram air blocks. Obviously 2 bolt blocks used different caps entirely. Sorry Rocky didn’t mean to step on your toes

Everyone is entitled to an opinion.
 

Maybe in some corner of the universe a collector would rather shell out big bucks for a 'WW' block with the wrong serial number on it, but we haven't run into many that think that way.

Instead, we've found (over the past 40 years in Pontiac-land), that the most acceptable replacement for a missing original engine block is a verifiable Service Replacement block.

I've never had anyone question a Service Replacement block further than "Why is there a SR block?"

The explanation is direct and simple:
1) The engine got killed.
2) The car got a new SR block.
3) Life went on.

That's probably why a SR block will command just about the same money as a real RAIV block that is not correct for the car.

That's our experience, but we've only sold around two dozen different SR blocks for various applications over the years with ZERO issues.

389, std 400 RAI, RAII, RAIII, RAIV, 455, 455HO & SD455.

I might have to take the time to make a list......

I can’t think of many high end ram air cars with SR blocks off the top of my head but I can think of many with properly coded correct application blocks such as WW WS WQ YW YZ etc. This is all a matter of opinion and somewhere on this site there is a LENGTHY thread on this subject. If you’re searching for a SR block NOW, it’s gonna be kinda hard to make the claim it was replaced under warranty 45-50 years ago. One might find themselves in a world of CHIT if one makes that claim and the original block surfaces. This has happened before. My experience over the last 20-25 years, almost everyone I’ve dealt with wants the correct letter coded block over a SR block. Plus as stated before, it’s REAL easy to find a 72 SR block, purchase it have a machine shop line bore it for original 4 bolt main caps (usually just the center caps) then grind it down and stamp a Ram Air Block number, be it II, III or IV.

Here is one thread that deals with SR vs Correct


http://forums.maxperformanceinc.com/...28#post5762828

And another with some VERY thorough and thoughtful responses from guys who own or deal in ram air stuff.


http://forums.maxperformanceinc.com/...29#post5766029

RA IV SR Pictures
 

Here are the block and main cap pictures. #1 cap cast GM 8786621. #3 cap cast
GM 8786623. #5 cap cast GM 8786625 or 8786626. The 8's may be 9's. Hard to tell! No visible casting numbers on caps 2 and 4. Thanks to everyone for their input. Gary

That’s a legit 4 bolt front main cap and those are the correct legit bolts for a 4 bolt block so I’d say chances are it was a SR block

Gary,

Thanks for sharing the detailed photos.

I concur, there's nothing about your block would suggest that it's anything other than an authentic SR application for a 1970 R/A IV.

RA IV SR Pictures
 

Here is the date code

Thank you!

I can say with certainty sometimes a SR block did end up in these cars. These short blocks didn’t last long as race engines.

If you had a car like mine that had the dealer swap in a RAII block that was already balanced and blueprinted for the race season, then drop in a SR block at the end of a season what would you put in the car? A WH block that never saw any time in the car at all since day 1 ?

Let me clarify( stephens RAII short block survived because they didn’t use the stock rods but the mystery rod found in Mc carthys book) I only know this because I still have the rods. Regular guys didn’t have those upgrades for an option. Stephens had whatever they needed.

I have a engineering std deck 303 block.No EUN,no vin and no code.Looks like they just took a RA III block of the rack and stamped the 303 on the face.Tom

Tom I think they did a lot of things people don’t realize back then. If you heard the stories I’ve heard from the original drivers and guys who worked on the cars at stephens Pontiac you’d say no way to some of it.
Like the RAV trans am pro car having A Dana 60 rear in it with a GM part number. I normally don’t even post that stuff here because I know HO w the nay sayers will be. But more then one of the guys involved with that car say it. They also had an aluminum block that was referenced in a story back in 73 or 74. Can’t r,ember which year muscle car review I think it was, there’s a story that goes with that article and it’s the reason they stopped racing.

I’m just happy I’m one of the few people to launch a real RAIV firebird at 6400 rpms at the track in full race trim. All that matchy matchy stuff seems less significant to me than that. It’s nice to be accurate, but I’m sure a lot of real items are being dismissed because people SAID they didn’t happen. Not trying to knock anyone but some stuff happened that wasn’t the norm for various reasons.

I’m assuming it was a Dana 60 they just say DANA rear, To be more clear. But they also call it a RAM IV and RAM V guess that’s how they said it back then. They never ever say ram air IV

I owned one of the factory late alu blocks along with a early alu block which was part of a complete alu engine that was done back in about 1959-1960.I just sold a pair of early alu blocks that were cast for M/T for his hemi heads.Been lucky to have been around in the early 60s when M/T was involved with pontiac engineering.Back to the original topic.Tom

FWIW, I sold a '70 455 SR block about 20 years ago for $1000.

My uncle (the Dealer) and I replaced the RA-IV block on a Chicago Customer's car in 1970. The customer paid the dealership) would have paid about $350 for the SR Block. The Factory Rep came by and had the original numbers of the removed block stamped on the new block (as well as the SR) and the customer went down the road.

I thought that it was odd that the Engine had a Edelbrock intake and a Holley carb installed and the Factory Rep still covered the engine under warranty as it had about 1200 miles on the vehicle.

Tom V.

Did not Reynolds Aluminum make all the blocks that can be tied to the factory engineering projects / usage and MT had his cast in near by CA somewhere ?

Even HO racing got there hands on a few leftovers that I recall them selling into the mid to late 70s I think.

I seem to recall the name Lukens tied to the ones HO where selling?

Maybe Ken can shed some light on this?

Pretty sure Reynolds did not do them.Dimitrie might know as his farther worked in the foundry.I know for sure they were machined at Pontiac.2 of the late ones I have owned were pulled out of the trash on a weekend.There were 6 there.The one I built had some casting voids and core shift and porosity issues.Tom

At one time I believe Loren B owned all 6 of those blocks, if I remember the story that he told me correctly.

Tom V.

Yes,we talked about it when we met at that little motel years ago near Norwalk.I believe they went to Bob Underwood.Tom

Off topic but here are a couple rare engineering pieces that were used to run the RA IV and RA V SCCA short deck blocks when running the 2-4 Xram intakes

Interesting! Not surprised that the factory in term of flat out racing items decided to go back to the iron cased distributor's long after the production ones went over to Aluminum!

Steve,I really think they just use the Chevy corvette casting.Tom

You may have that right, as they do look darn tall for a Pontiac Distributor!

They needed the height to clear the cross ram 2-4 intake which was legal in 1969 for SCCA racing.Tom

303 shortdeck SCCA engine

I thought I read that ( about Reynolds )in angles and Mc carthys book ?

I had a 70 SR RAIV block in 1980 that I was putting together to drop into my RAIII 69 Judge. Came with pistons and pins as well. Sold that and the car to a guy that finished it and dropped it in the 69. For what I got for it back then would make you cry today. I've seen so many RAIV GTO's claiming to be "numbers matching" today than ever before. But as you mentioned, most real RAIV original blocks were destroyed years ago however blocks are being restamped more than ever now and called original. I used the original cast connecting rods in that SR block but had the casting seam ground down and all glass beaded. I'm sure this helped keep the engine alive a bit because as you mentioned the stock rods were a weakness. Still a genuine RAIV SR block would be nice to have and I'm sure there is a market for it.

Thank You!

Jim Lutkins was a Chevy Guy from Grand Rapids, Michigan who loved Pontiac vehicles and engines and raced a 455 HO drag car for several years. He had some serious connections with Pontiac Engineering.

It does not surprise me a bit that Jim would be involved with some of the Aluminum Block investigations. I was not aware of the HO Racing connection with him but it makes sense.

Tom V.

I sold a 455 SR block nearly 20 years ago for $1K if that helps in pricing.

Seeing you guys are posting on block numbers, I'm thinking Rocky is always looking for information. My T/A has a 73 455 4 bolt SR block with casting numbers SR812568, H252, 48542 with last number ground off and looks like an 8 stamped. Noting special. FYI

Charles