Original motor vs. replacement

[njsteve]

I almost got pulled into one of those stories. I contacted he 2d owner of my Hemi Charger back in 2002 (this was the same guy who assembled the replacement engine while drunk and put the pistons in backwards). He told me he had the original block from my Charger in his dad's garage. When I told him I'd pay him his price for the block he said he'd get back to me. After chasing him for months I finally get a hold of him and he says that his dad got tired of it in the garage and threw it out just the other day. Well, his dad is 85 years old and a hemi block weighs about 500 pounds so I knew he was full of excrement. In addition, I knew the orginal owner literally grenaded the original block at 150 mph (with 4.10 gears, so you can imagine the schrapnel that caused).

Through a bizarre fluke of fate in 1989 I ended up with the engine block from the next hemi car built right after mine. It happened to be in a Hemi Daytona I bought to restore. Both my 70 Charger and the 69 Daytona had the perfect date coded block for the opposite car. I switched them and never looked at the VINs til years later. It turned out the block I now have in the car was from the same assembly line, same day only 21 cars later than my car. According to Galen Govier (the Ed Cuneen of Mopars) there were no hemi cars built between those two serial numbers: I stumbled into the next hemi built after my motor on the same day. Very Scary!