In the real world, things sometimes just go terribly wrong. Like when the engine that you so carefully assembled rewards you by pushing shrapnel pieces out through the oil pan. If there is a silver lining to the dark cloud of oil that just shot out the exhaust, it would be that we learn more from our mistakes and miscues than from success. This episode was not our first exploded engine learning moment and most assuredly won’t be our last.
We had built what was nothing more than a very basic, cast piston, 355ci small-block Chevy that was intended for my ’93 GMC pickup truck to replace its ailing 290,000-mile 305. Originally, we intended to buy a standard GM crate engine. But after discovering that GM no longer offers that two-piece rear main seal crate engine, we decided to build our own.
Our friend Bill Irwin offered a used, one-piece rear main seal 350ci engine and we immediately had a machine shop clean it and perform the standard rebuild procedure that included 0.030-over cast pistons and rebuilding the stock rods with new
