I had a post here yesterday asking for help ID'ing a 440 I went ahead and bought the motor. It's a complete motor carb to pan and all accessories on it. The heads that are on it have a casting number 2780915-4 are these good heads? will they run on today's fuel? the side of the block says 2536430-9 (the -9 may be a -8 hard to tell) the front pad says C440 3 9 . The motor looks clean under the valve cover but I haven't seen inside the oil pan yet. The guy I got it from said it runs but it will get taken apart and rebuilt anyway. can anybody give me any more information on this motor? is it worth the $300 I paid for it?

The 915 heads are of the closed chamber design, 67 only,...unique pcs, often sought after, keep in mind should you rebuild the motor, piston choice and installed deck height are specific to this motor, vs 68-up 440 RB's,.....as far as running on today's "fuel",....just keep the compression under 10:1 and the timing within limits of what the engine can fire without detonation, or knock under accceleration

Also be mindful that the 915 heads also came in two sizes of exhaust valves. 1.60" and 1.74".

Will the 915 heads have the hardened seats for running unleaded fuel?

Regardless of valve size the 915 HP vs LP heads are no different except how they were machined for valve size, they are easy to add the bigger valves to thus making them identical to HP heads (a very good stock cast iron head BTW), it's a no brainer deal when you get a valve job. As far as unleaded vs leaded gas, you can have hardened seats added but I really don't see the need unless you plan on putting 100K on the engine, just go with a good stainless steel valve and forget about the hardened seats, you really don't need them. As far as the money you spent you got a great deal, it's not an original HP engine but so what? The only real difference is the "HP" stamping on the id pad once it's been rebuilt.

I don't think I'll put 100k on this car I only put about 1,000 miles on my cars a year my trucks well that's another story. This motor does not have the pad for the vin #'s on the block am I looking in the wrong place or did some motors come without this pad ?

There's no VIN# sequence numbers on pre 1968 Engines or Transmissions.

Thank you for all the help you guys are great.