[64speed]

Originally Posted by Sirrotica

When I worked at the local Pontiac dealer in 1970 there was a RA IV block in the warranty pile that had a broken lifter bore in it. What I don't know is if the bore broke out with the hydraulic camshaft in it, or if it had the cam changed before the bore broke out of the block, and then they put the OEM cam and lifters back in to get it warrantied.

The guy that changed the fitted block out said it had the factory cam in it when it came in on the hook.

They had already put a sledge hammer through the water jacket, so it was completely scrap when I saw it. For anyone that isn't familiar with GM warranty, all warranty engines at that time were smacked with a sledge hammer while the factory rep was present to make certain the engine couldn't be used or sold after GM paid the warranty claim on it. In that case it was redundant with the lifter bore broken already.

Since seeing that lifter bore broken I have never seen another one broken, even though I used a solid roller cam in a few of my own engines without any bracing. Two 400s and a 455. The advertised spec on the cam was 320 degrees, by .525 lift, surely a mild cam by todays standards, but when I bought it used I was told the engine it came out of was a 60s era FED. I have no idea if there was any truth to that, or not. The 320 degrees advertised duration put the power band way up there, and it came with a rev kit.

Later I had it re-ground by Crower, somewhere in the 280 degree range, where it was much more streetable, especially behind a T400 with 4.33 gears. The first car it was in with 320 degrees of duration was a 65 GTO, 4 speed with a 3.90 axle. It would run 6500 no problem, until a keeper split and dropped a valve.

Yeah I know that block wasn’t salvageable but I know all about “destroy in store” from my days working at auto zone and advance Auto Parts in my teenage years. Took home a lot of “destroyed” items LOL