You can do the same with the cylinder head. We used to evaluate valves and seats by turning the head up on its belly and filling the combustion chamber with gasoline (if I remember right). I wouldn't do it with modern fuel, because the junk they add in will evaporate (well, at least the unleaded her...

A slow coolant leak into the intake is not necessarily detectable with the naked eye. If it was the headgasket that leaked, you'd see bubbles in the rediator tank. The blowby is hopefully caused only by a varnished ring. This can be dealt with externally, without having to take the engine apart. Unf...

430 6V wrote:I've heard/read the handling thing too but I'm not sure I believe it...

The engine was supposedly much heavier than other engines of this displacement. The Rambler 327 was also heavier than contemporary engines, because it wasn't a thin-wall design. This might be the very reason for MEL's overweight

The '58 Marauder was the first production engine to reach 400 hp. After about 6 months, they detuned it, because the oil companies couldn't get their act together on a fuel quality standard, which wasn't a problem at all a few years after that. If you could remember that device on a 50's vehicle cal...