Here's how the CL ad read:
"Fully Built 302/331 Stroker AFR heads
DSS fully blue printed block with forged 331 rotating assembly with steel crank has a DSS racing billet main girdle pistons are fly cut to handle the cam. Cam is an anderson N51 very aggressive cam has all new double roller timing chain pro comp springs and hardened push rods 1.6 roller rockers. Has AFR outlaw 185cc aluminum heads with new bbk headers . Everything is held together with ARP studs from top to bottom. The top end is an eddlebrock performer RPM intake with bbk 75mm throttle body and ford motorsport 24# injectors. Has a motor craft billet distributor with 10mm ford racing wires, eddlebrock water pump, double sump oil pan with high volume oil pump. Also has custom aluminum valve covers that are heady duty and look real nice, will come with the billet accessory brackets for the alternator and power steering pump, has brand new alternator and crank dampener with pulley. Engine has only been run on an engine dyno for break in and made 480 to the flywheel so should put down about 420 to the wheels at 10.5 compression it runs on pump gas. i have a small fortune in this engine the heads alone were 2200 bucks may be interested in trades im also selling a mustang that has a 5.0 in it call or txt "
Normally I wouldn't even consider buying a used engine. But this one is almost exaclty what I was planning on building, and the fact that it was built by DSS and was dyno'd was appealing. Add to that that the asking price was about half what it would cost to buy. So I travelled a significant distance yesterday to look at it.
At first the engine looked fine, but the garage wasn't very well lit. Then I took out my flashlight and started looking closer. The water pump was hitting and dragging on the harmonic balancer.
There was grime on the block. I started looking at the threaded holes and the roller pilot bearing in the crank, which was oily and loose. I became suspicious that the engine had in fact been in a car.
One of the reasons I went to look at it was that he said he had the dyno graph, but only in a hard copy. So I ask to see it. He hands me a printout from Engine Analyzer, which is a design program, not dyno software. Attached that is the "documentation" he said he had. This consisted of a series of printouts from Summit Racing and one from DSS. They showed what he had in his "Cart". Not receipts, just that. No proof that he bought anything from DSS. Then he tells me that he only bought the shortblock from them. I ask him how they dyno tested it then, and he tells me that he assembled the rest of the engine and had it dyno'd at a place in Cincinnatti.
See how this is going? So there I am, with no documentation that it's a DSS engine, no real dyno graph. He didn't have a flywheel for it, and when asked said the dyno company provided that (huh?). But yet its a fully "blanced" engine. No proof of that either.
So I leave, kind of pissed off, but restraining myself. I ran the engine combo through my Engine Analyzer program and got 360Hp, not 480.
I don't know what he's doing with this, but my hunch is that it's an old shortblock with newish heads, that may have something wrong with it and he's just trying to pass his problem off to someone else. I didn't have time to go look at this thing, and waisted 4 hours and a lot of gas to do it. If I'm right about him, what he's doing is criminal in my opinion. But I don't know for sure.
One thing I know. I'm dropping my block off at the machine shop this week and will be building my own engine.
