Rally Monaro came with a some what tired 308 fitted with Yellow Terra heads mated to a two speed power glide. Given the option to rebuild the 308 or use the rebuild requirement as an excuse to upgrade to a 350 chev, it was 350 chev all the way.
Given the Monaro was purchased sight unseen from ebay, when what sounded like a great buy of a rebuilt 350 chev came up I jumped on it. It had the best factory flowing cast iron 350 chev Vortech heads on it which really excited me.
We were very keen to maintain the Historic classification for the Monaro if we could which requires factory iron heads so this was absolutely perfect to find these high flow heads.
The purchase was made and this new to us 350 chev engine would go into the beautifully freshened and painted Rally Monaro engine bay.
Looking the bees knees in the Monaro eventually it was fire up day. You would not believe it, the engine fired up but was clearly sick with a blown head gasket.
Oh looks like I trusted the wrong person with this purchase. A pull down confirmed it was a Dud, the block was full of poorly fitted Helicoils and not enough iron to hold them in.
Dam what ever happened to car blokes looking after car blokes. Well we are glass half full guys at the Dukes so perhaps he just did not realise how bad the block was before doing the build.
Time to get a professional engine builders help with this one.
Ebay engines, lessons learnt there.