[ZeGermanHam]

Originally Posted by G.T.O.boy

Franks has a 389 WS block for $650 and shipping around $250.

Examples like this are why I previously said above that an 389 WS with .030 overbore is worth roughly $800. It seems that if you keep your eyes out, you can usually find one for under $1k. That said, the example you cited at Frank's is an .060 overbore and says it'll need to be sleeved.

On a tangent related to block date codes and sequencing, I recently read a 5-part interview of someone who worked in the Pontiac, MI plant for over 20 years starting in October, 1963. The interview was conducted in the early '90s I believe. Super interesting read. Here is an excerpt:

They did whichever way was the fastest. If they had a motor that had a bad head on it, maybe one of the spark plugs was twisted off, or something of that nature, instead of pulling that engine down and changing the head, they would pull the whole motor out, put a complete new engine in it, and send that damaged motor back to final repair. Them guys would either repair it, and then it would be installed on the line at a later date, or they would disassemble that and split the parts off. They would go to service parts.

Maybe the whole motor would go for a service engine someplace. Another thing you hear a lot of people talking about - for a car to be correct, the engine has to be built, they say, from thirty to ninety days before the production of the body. That is only a "house rule." That's not pat. I've seen the train cars come in with a whole load of Pontiac motors that had been setting with dust on 'em and bird manure all over 'em. These engines had been setting probably six months someplace. And they were going to get put in production-built cars.

Nowadays, with that particular engine on a GTO that some guy was restoring, or somebody else was seeking to buy, they'd say "look, this motor was built nine months before the build date on this car, that's not right." That could very well be the correct motor for that car. That would probably happen later on in the year, but it could happen anytime. An engine that was into production early in the model year could have had a defect in it. They set it aside, it got shoved around for two months before it got repaired, then when it did get repaired it come back into the production line, and maybe it sat around another two months before it was to be used. Now there's four months difference in there.

This excerpt is from part 4 of the interview. If interested in reading the whole thing, see links below:

Part 1: LINK
Part 2: LINK
Part 3: LINK
Part 4: LINK
Part 5: LINK