My, my has time flown. I do have a few things to report. I have my engine, and i have it installed in the car now. As soon as i figure out how to use my new home computer (Mac) i will get some pictures posted up.
But i have a tale to tell about my engine.
So i dropped it off at the builders January of 2012, for the next 10 months i was snowed with excuse after excuse why it wasnt done. I even sent money for some additional work over and above a standard overhaul. I learned a lot about patience. I finally called the first week of Dec 2012. This is where the story gets interesting. He was waiting for me to call at that point. He had lost all his customer information in his shop fire.
Yes his shop burned down over thanksgiving. He lost everything, $200,000 for just his building, and around $280,000 in his equipment(so he says), as well as 20 plus engines of various customers. Including a couple numbers matching motors. The only 2 engines that survived were Mopars, my 440 and another customers 383. As would luck have it, he finished the tooling work on mine and put it in a crate and moved it out of his shop over to another building, closed up shop, jumped in his car with his family and headed out of town for the holidays. The next day he got a call from a neighbor saying his shop was on fire. Yeah it burned to the ground. It was a beautiful facility, something only dreams can imagine. So he was being held up by his insurance company, couldn't do anything. He figured he was going to get strung out for months. He assembled my engine in his house, and i went and got it in February this year. I felt bad for him, however this is not the whole story......
I will be very careful with names and places as not to create issues in case someone knows this guy. He is renown hotrod builder that came out of a west coast state about 10 years ago or so, WHEN HIS SHOP BURNED DOWN! This was shop number one, He bought a place in a neighboring state, with a little rundown garage on it. He built engines out of it for a year or so, and it mysteriously BURNED DOWN! This was shop number 2. He got another settlement and then built himself another shop, which was his most recent. It was a thing of beauty, had everything you could imagine. Anyhow this is the shop that burnt down this past year, SHOP NUMBER 3. Now you can see why he is having such a problem with settling with his insurance company. Three burn-downs in a fairly short period of time, would definitely raise some questions by insurance investigators.
Not sure what has happened since i last talked to him, heck of a nice guy, i hope things work out for him. But if this last fire really was an accident, all i can say is it looks DANG SUSPICIOUS.
I have my engine and now i really not sure what i have. Only time will tell when i finally get this thing going.
