Thanks, sounds like a little bit of everything killed it then. It lived 10,000 miles with the blower and from the sound of the posts here, it was lucky to have run that long.

The car that had this motor in it got a new factory longblock and had the timing kicked back, so I guess it won't be long before we find out if it's going to happen again. From what folks are saying here, it's probably a matter of time...

In the past I've pulled down domed piston/small cam 383s that were run on pump gas, and I could see tiny flecks of material were taken out of the piston....but they were cleaner burning as you said and didn't show signs of oil.

From your description, light detonation on an oil burner will take little pieces of the oil/carbon gunk off the piston before any aluminum gets taken out? I didn't know that. Always good to learn a little something, thanks!