HP Blocks Substituted????

[Plum6Pak]

Here's one I can't figure out and I need to tell a little story to explain. My car is originally a 1970 Satellite, RH23L0E. The fender tag (with the exception of someone accidently putting an L on it backwards and me thinking it was a J), engine SN, radiator support, transmission and trunk seal serial numbers all match. The problem is this, when I got the car I knew it had a 383 4 bbl in it and the guy that I got it from said it's all numbers matching right down to the driveline. I just took it at that since it did have a 383 in it and I could make out the F 383 and barely see the 8 11 on the freshly built and painted engine that was in it so I hadn't ever checked the serial number or bothered to check the ID pad any further. Now that I have the engine out and the stroker installed I got curious to see if the numbers all in fact matched the car. The SN matches but hadn't really sanded off and checked for any other numbers on the ID pad, so I took some sand cloth to the rest of it and verified the 8 11, found an R and HP. My VIN and fender tag both say it came with a 2 bbl. Were the blocks that were already designated to become an HP already stamped with the HP on the ID pad and then they just add the rest once it was built or did they stamp all of it at once? I do realize that all these blocks are identical until they are built. Why the R (regular gas) stamp if it was an HP? Or, could this be a mistake and got an HP that was suppose to go into a Sport Satellite? One more interesting thing, it has original orange paint under the fresh paint or what looks like original clear to the bare metal and I thought all non HP engines for this year was suppose to be blue or turquoise. 

[Chryco Psycho]

on the oil pan rail just behind the right engine mount there will be a Vin # stamped on a flat pad , take a look at that # , I doubt ti si the original block it would not have been stamped HP if it had a 2 bbl installed

[Alaskan_TA]

Is this your tag? If so, that is definately not a backwards L;

[Alaskan_TA]

If it is your tag I would like to use it on my factory error pages at http://www.hamtramck-historical.com/factoryErrors.shtml

Pleeease? 

Thanks,
Barry

[Plum6Pak]

Chryco, the S/N is on the block by the oil pan and matches all the other places. Although they match the other numbers in size, I believe it could have been someone who re built it, that may have added it later once they made it an HP. Doesn't explain why the orange paint unless they boiled the block and got rid of all traces of the turquoise paint. That makes more sense to me than anything else.

Barry, you mentioned this a while back and I spaced it, no problem, go right ahead.

Here's a picture of the ID pad. You can hardly make out the HP by the date.

[Chryco Psycho]

if the VIN is stamped with different size or font #s it was probably restamped

[Alaskan_TA]

Compare the stamps on the engine and trans for sure, they were stamped when bolted together with the same stamp, so the fonts should be identical. Check the date codes too and see if they pre-date the car or not.

Thanks on the use of the tag, it is up on the site now. 

Barry

[Plum6Pak]

Thanks guys, the stamps are exactly the same, the date code on the the engine is 8/11/69 and the car was built 9/69, the trans I don't know the date but the S/N is correct. I checked out your website Barry, it's pretty interesting, sure was a lot of weird things happen back then on all of these numbers and ID stuff, wonder how many are actually out there that go un noticed, probaby a lot more than we'll ever know. I'll keep a closer watch from now on for these type of errors and send any I may find.