yes Mr P i did. when i received the engine, it was obvious the heads were brand new & had been ported, i pulled the oil pan & checked things from underneath. the bearings were new, pistons looked new. the lower section of the bores looked brand new as well. with the engine being wrapped up like it was, i assumed the seller was correct in saying it was ready to go. all it needed was an intake manifold & a distributor & water pump & it was complete. we could even tell it had run in grease on the Purple shaft cam.
i pulled the springs & fitted some weak outters to run the cam in, refitted the springs supplied & took the car for a drive around our country roads. it never liked coming back to an idle after it had been cruising.
i was plagued with a few problems with other components in the early part. the Dominator was constantly misbehaving so i sold it & bought a new 950 Quickfuel which did run better but not by a great deal. the starter motor had a failure, but it was new so it got replaced. the battery was having issues but that turned out to be the alternator which i replaced with a new one along with the battery.
the car, my '71 'cuda had been in hibernation for a decade so i was chasing other issues before i concluded it was the engine itself. i made 3 passes down the track in this time before pulling the engine,