70 Road Runner engine and "numbers matching"

[chargerdon]

Friend of mine owns a 1970 Road Runner with the std 383 engine and its numbers matching.   

He decided about 6 months ago to have the engine rebuilt, as it was using about a quart of oil per 500 miles.   So he went to a local speed shop that does engines.   Man did they hand him a line...told him they could rebuild his engine to near 600 HP so he yanked the engine and brought it to them.   ITS STILL THERE...   

After the magnafluxing they said that scratches in two cylinders were too deep for a rebore and ended up sleeving it.   Then ...they told him that with the sleeves it would be at oem standard bore, but, you cant buy std bore pistons, so they Bored the sleeves to .030.   They they were worried about the alignment and "x-rayed it".     

Now when he told me this story, i said wow...sleeving and then boring the sleeved engine sounds terrible...go find a new block...   He rejected that idea saying that it then would no longer be "numbers matching" and would drastically lower its resale value.   Now to me I understand that a lot of people think numbers matching is real important...but to me...having a sleeved and then bored to .030 engine is far worse than having a sleeved and bored engine.    This is NOT a 100 point car, its been repainted in plum crazy which was not its oem color and nothing special about it ...so to me the numbers matching on a car like this is not a big deal.   Anyways they did it and put in the .030 pistons and now their waiting on the aluminum performance cyl heads that they ordered...now going one 7 months of waiting...   Oh and i think that without stroking it, or adding a turbo or supercharger or nitrous..there is no way a 383 hits 600 HP...so this shop is feeding him a big line of shit !!!   I would bet that they screwed up the fresh up boring and thats why they ended up sleeving it !! 

Comments on this ?     Change the block or go ahead with sleeving and then boring to .030 ???

[70_440-6Cuda]

So many shops out there with poor craftsmanship - drives me crazy.  Well, my OCD would get the better of me and I would not be able to let the #'s go and would take a chance.  I would agree they probably F-ed it up and are trying to fix their mistake.  I would pick everything up, pay what they are owed and take it somewhere else to make sure it doesn't get any worse.  Agreed the value probably isn't going to change, but my dumb ass loves a challenge

[HP2]

He got feed a line and took it hook, line, and sinker. IMO, simply because they are a "race shop" doesn't mean they know much about how to build a solid Mopar, unless they have a history of good results with Ma's stuff.

I don't give a flying flip about numbers matching so I would have just got a new block. But, I know this does mean a lot to some people so I understand his desire to keep it, but, IMO, this turns it into a casual driver with maybe an occasional drop the hammer on the street kind of engine, regardless of the power thy are claiming to be able to build into it. Frankly, if he was interested in retaining a numbers matching engine, 600 hp shouldn't have ever been a part of the conversation. A good solid 400-450 build would have been adequate, but so many guys get sucked in to horsepower talk that sometimes they make bad decisions.

[RUNCHARGER]

It would be interesting to see the list of parts they are going to use for this 600HP, street 383 build. I would believe it if that list includes a 250 shot maybe.
To me it is important to keep an original block with a car after 50 years. However if he wants a rowdy street brawler he should have wrapped up the original engine, stuck it in the corner and gathered up a 400 block and built a stroker.
If the shop was really building a 600HP 383 they would have ordered custom pistons for it and they come in any size you want. .030 over is no  big deal though and I don't see a problem with it, just the drama. Did they sleeve just 2 cylinders? If so they may have missed something in another cylinder they didn't catch until after the sleeve job, their mistake.
I don't know about lately but Trick Flow heads have been hard to get for awhile if that's what they're using. Not sure about other aluminum BB heads.
Best to gather all the parts up and take it to a shop that doesn't BS it's customers.

[tparker]

Unfortunately at these crazy potential prices, people are making decisions based on that. It bugs me to no end when people are trying to get there car 100% period correct. Looking for correct number consumables like hoses, belts, oil filters, etc is just plain silly. Looking for rims stamped with a specific month, ugh. I get why people do it, and I think it is a cool "hobby" but what bothers me is that there ARE cars out there that are near 100% correct and that is amazing. It is much less amazing to take something that was jacked up and to restore it to complete numbers matching. This is misleading and disingenuous. My worry is someone will end up buying a car thinking those cars are 100% original when they are not.

But now I hadn't thought about this aspect. So if you have a numbers matching hemi, 440, or a T/A with the 340 and the engine was seriously damaged, would you swap the motor or band aid. When there is 10s of thousands on the table, I suspect there are a fair amount of jacked up engines out there.

Ugh. Glad I am not playing that game.

[torredcuda]

You need to bore the sleeves once they are pressed in, that is SOP. It`s BS that they would need a .030 overbore unless they screwed up but I would think that would still be just fine - no need to find another block, just find another machine shop before they screw something else up.

[torredcuda]

FWIW I have the matching number 383 engine for my `70 road runner all rebuilt awaiting me to finish the body work and paint so I can install it. Most guys would have just built a 440 and dropped it in not caring about originality but I wanted it more stock.