Well, finally got around to tearing down the 350 that was not running well in my 1978 K-10. Was using a lot of oil and smoking badly. Pulled the heads, they looked fine. Pulled the cam, fuel pump rod, bearings, and inspected all of the gaskets, other than being ready to re-torque, the head gaskets were fine too. So, therefore, there I sit, figuring it is going to be rings... didn't know how right I was. Now, I must say that this truck did overheat and crack the passenger side head. Not cool on a perfectly good set of 993 heads with 2200 miles on a rebuild. So, I began pulling pistons. The engine is 0.030" over (actually measures to 4.0279" all the way down on all cylinders). Pulled #8 first, it was broken just below the botom oil rings, but the rings were undamaged. I then found a 2" piece of oil ring and two pieces of ring groove area from another piston. I kept going and found that all other pistons were fine. Last, I pulled #1, now, it kept getting stuck when I turned the engine over to remove the other pistons. I found out why once I got it out. The piston buckled from the bottom of the oil ring peak to the bottom of the crown and exploded all of the rings and gouged a nick scrape in the #1 cylinder. The scrape was about 0.005-6" deep. So, the engine will be bored to 0.040" over and will get used again. Now for the fun part, the block is a 1973 Impala block according to mortec. The cranks and rods however, were cast in mid 1972 as well as the balancer and timing cover. They were used to make my supposed 350 into what was actually a 375 HP 327. Not what I wanted to find right now, but perfect for my 327 4 bolt project (3970010 "010 020" 4 bolt 1976 350 block, 327 large journal crank and matching rods, 0.125" dome 327 FI pistons and L-79 350 HP 327 cam kit 186 double hump heads and so on.) Now I get to use my knife edge 350 forged crank for an engine that I don't even want to build, but oh well, got to have wheels.
Now for a question.
First, I always use Clevite bearings, speed pro/sealed power pistons, and Melling Oil pumps and cam kits as well as Zoom or Cloyes timing components. So, I found a kit with Hastings Moly rings, Hastings flat top pistons, Melling HV oil pump, Melling MTC-1 204/214 .420/.443 cam, Melling lifters, ROL Gaskets, Cloyes Double roller timing set and ACL rod and main bearings for $199 on ebay with $20 shipping, would this be a good kit to use for a daily driver/ occasional mud/pulling truck?
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