Wow the heavies weighed in already! Cab you’ve steered me right over the years and Andy I bought your big block book when it came out to support you and to drool over all that horsepower- it’s your fault I bought a big block! I was literally re-reading your book and wondering why I’m still awake when I looked at moparts to see if anybody chimed in.

I think I like both of your ideas- make it big and use the caddy 500 or bowtie crate motor specs as a starting place for big reliable torque. I will check out those grinds- I think I used a 268 comp in a smallblock it was kind of the biggest I would go in a street 318. It worked out well. I just remember Andy talking big duration #s getting soaked up by cubes in his book but that’s probably aimed more at the 600+ hp crowd.

So far I opened up the valvecover to check casting #s and started stripping down the front of the block. I’ll get it bare and down to the machine shop asap to get the walls checked out and to find out how much bore it will need to clean up. Hopefully this 78 block doesn’t have much core shift or any damage. It looks well cared for so far- no sludge under the valve covers.

Thanks again and if anybody else built something like this I’d love to hear about it! The hot rod guys did one on you tube but they kind of cruised it around and did a powerbrake burnout- a warm 273 could do that...