From the moment I had pulled the old engine I had begun looking for a new one. I was keen to get a good engine, but didn't want to have to sell a kidney if possible. As any of the UK members on here will testify, there are not hundreds of small blocks for sale in the UK and many of the ones that are, are either expensive junk or just plain expensive.
Mine showed up for sale on the NSRA web-site, it was being sold by a guy called Zane Llewellyn (he runs ZaNNetec Motorsports) it had become "surplus" to a current project and he was selling on behalf of a customer. Zane has a great reputation, especially in drag racing circles, so I knew I'd be getting what I was paying for.
The motor was a recently rebuilt 30 thou over 350 with aftermarket cam, it had been used, but very little. The heads were freshly rebuilt and never fitted, Zane kindly assembled them before shipping. It needed all ancillaries, manifolds etc, but that was not a problem
The biggest problem was geography, the engine was south west of Bristol, I am in the north east, it honestly could not have been much further away from me and still been in England! I used a company called Paisley Freight who did a door to door service for a bargain £45.
The trolley it is standing on was "cobbled" together (in a hurry) using some angle I had lying around and wheels from a supermarket trolley, it will hold a engines and trans. Non my finest piece of fabrication, but it does the job.
Do you remember my early plan fit a motor use the truck, well I clearly hadn't. As good as the engine may be, there was no way I could fit this to my newly painted engine bay. The engine was cleaned and sanded given a coat of etch primer and then painted in 2k orange. IMHO the only fitting colour for a Chevy engine.
The inlet manifold is an Edelbrock Torker 2. I picked this up for £20 needing a repair to the water inlet, the NPT fitting had been over tightened and cracked the manifold. I enlisted the help of my friend Kevin who spun up a new tube in aluminium, repaired the crack and welded in the new tube. I had it media blasted by a local company (MD Shot blasting) for a bargain £5 then shot it with a coat of coarse silver that I had lying around. For £25 I thought it turned out well.
