[68ragtop]

This morning I was looking at a 79 Y84 Trans am that is for sale on ebay without out the original engine. Nothing new here, we see it all the time. Most of these engine swaps happen earlier in these cars life when the numbers don't effect the value much, if at all. In fact in the early 90's I had a 32K mile 1987 Iroc camaro with a rod knock. I rebuilt a different short block for it & the original went to the scrap yard. When I sold the car, it made absolutley no difference as the value was based off blue book & condition. I wonder sometimes if someone put that car away & the owners will be wishing they had that block in another 10-15 years from now when those cars get a turn at the collector market.

Then I thought, somebody should start a match.com for engines & cars as a platform for some of these engines didn't get recycled & Are just sitting in yards or shops across the county. Well, Ironically there is such a site. http://numbersmatching.com/index.php Not a bad idea, but I think it should include searching by vehicle type, block codes & date searches too. Something like this needs to be marketed & setup a little better to really work IMO.

[johnta1]

Hmmm......

Maybe I need to charge for my info?



Of course most are for Pontiacs, but have a few Chevy items.

Lost/Found Search

For submission of info:

Lost/Found Submit

[bird72]

other than wrecked vehicles with saved engines, you have to wonder how a RAIV or SuperDuty get yanked and sold. Like something better went in? Sadly, some are the story of "It Died". 76 LoPo 400 takes its place to "keep 'er runnin". Dude sells RAIV for $150 to help pay rent in 1977. Some other dude owns today and says: "Sure I'll check rarelostmotor.com and give it up". "Ah, maybe not....."

[68ragtop]

I truthfully didn't even know vin numbers were stamped on the blocks until sometime in the very early 90's. Ignorance I guess. mostly because I just didn't care & more importantly didn't have all the access to information like we all have today. I knew a little about block codes & four bolt main SBC's but that was about it. I didn't know, & didn't care. Heck, I probably would have traded someone a numbers matching engine for some other mutt that had more power & could lay down more rubber from the stop lights.
Numbers matching meant absolutely nothing to me 30 years ago. Now I am a fanatic.

[71GP76TA]

Back in the mid 80's... I worked with a guy that threw away the original engine to his '69 Camaro Z/28 CLONE... car was originally a SS396...

A couple of years ago I threw away the POP to my '69 Chevelle SS396. By the time I realized... the garbage man already came.

[gtohurstjudge]

I put a 455 in my GTO in the mid nineties and sold my numbers matching engine to a friend of mine for his GTO. I don't miss the 400 and have no regrets.....the 455
will put ten car lengths on a GTO with my 400 installed in it in a drag race. Could care less what the numbers say it is. It looks totally correct, hauls ass and idles like a sewing machine....all is good.

[tom s]

Almost sold the numbers matching RA III engine from my 69 T/A!Had it sold when I thought I should check.Tom

[teeraven]

I'm not interested in numbers matching cars and really don't see why so many people care. Other than the few super rare optioned and valuable cars, why bother keep a more run of the mill car correct? I mean if you want to keep a car correct and it happens to be numbers matching then great, but if it's what you want other than a few stampings don't match, big deal. The only thing I'd do with a numbers matching car is sell it for top dollar and buy a non numbers car to replace it.

I've had a few people tell me I "ruined" my 67 Firebird by replacing the OHC6 and 3 speed. A bare bones base model with drum brakes, no AC, no radio, dog dish hub caps, etc, isn't worth much in restored condition anyway. It was fun to drive like that, but it'll be more fun when I'm done with my pro-touring build and I'll never sell it anyway so value doesn't matter.

My 79 TATA had the original 403 in it when I bought it but it was full of water. I scrapped it and put an Olds 455 in it. I only did that because the 403 TATAs aren't all that valuable any way, so I might as well build it how I want it.

I have a 68 Firebird Sprint 6 someone put a 400 in. The guy I got it form said the last guy still had the original engine. I had no way to contact him but I put an ad on cl looking for it. The guy contacted me and I had a buddy pick it up while I was out of town. It's unfortunately a regular OHC6 someone put the Sprint manifolds on. I would love to know if someone still has the numbers matching block, so a sight it could be listed on would be cool. If I ever did get it, I'd just end up selling the car and buy another one though, so I don't care too much.

I also sold the original engine from my 89 GTA but I own cars for what they can do for me now. I put an LS1 and 6 speed in it. I'd rather build cars how I want them than try to preserve them for some theoretical future day they might be worth more. There's a low mileage 87 GTA on cl right now for $30k. The guy is out of his mind if he thinks he'll get anywhere near that. For a car like that, the difference in value between low mileage original and higher mileage modified is only a few grand at most. Why bother own it if you aren't going to drive it and enjoy it?

I don't know how much fraud is going on in the Pontiac world, but the guys on camaros.net are very good at spotting incorrect stuff on 1st gen Camaros. There are always 69s on ebay with trim tags they believe are fake. Just one more reason I have no desire to pay top dollar for a "numbers" car. I'd be pissed if I spent $20k more than a car was worth and found out the numbers had been faked.

[Dennis H.]

I let the correct code tri power block from my 1964 GTO disappear from me back in 1970, in favor or a new shortblock. Did not know anything about matching numbers back then.

[MCronkGTO]

Also don't forget the 1973 Oil Embargo. People were yanking their big cubic inch gas guzzling engines in favor of a smaller more "effecient" engine. I know of a 71 Lemans Sport Convertible optioned with a 455 HO that had the motor pulled in favor of a 350. Guy put the motor on the curb for the trash to pick up! Also a local Mopar racer threw out several original 426 Hemi blocks back in the day because he had no room to store all of them.

No one knew what they would be worth today (or at least most did not). I also appreciate numbers matching having restored a concourse car. But I also like to "modify" and build cars to my liking. I always keep them "faithful" to the brand.

MarkC

[Lightfoot]

Originally Posted by MCronkGTO;

Also don't forget the 1973 Oil Embargo. People were yanking their big cubic inch gas guzzling engines in favor of a smaller more "effecient" engine

I don't believe this scenario took place anywhere near as much as you think it did.
For those concerned about fuel mileage, it would be cheaper to just find a second hand (or trade-in for new) Toyota, Datsun or Honda Civic than commit a knee jerk alteration to their gas guzzler. More than likely, the big engined cars got parked or sold, depending on whether the owners had the space to keep unused vehicles on their property.
Non running ones may have been junked as a result, though.

[poncho-mike]

It happened to me. I had a 67 400 4-spd Firebird w/3.55 gears that I upgraded to a 455, M-22 with a 3.73 12-bolt. I was just out of high school at the time and my insurance premiums were through the roof. There was no way I could afford insurance, taxes, registration and upkeep on two cars.

When I went back to college, I wanted to keep the Firebird but I couldn't afford the bad gas mileage. I stuck in a 350 engine and Saginaw trans and a lower geared rear end to improve my gas mileage. I was able to hang onto the car for a few more years but eventually sold it in favor of something that got better gas mileage.

[Barzini]

In the 1970s and 1980s, I watched my brother and several friends toss out an original engine without a second thought. No one had any idea these cars would be so valuable someday. A lot of years passes before I remember hearing the phrase "matching numbers." Like many of the other posters, it does not matter that much to me and it would never be a deal breaker.

[Simple Man]

The original engine in my 68 GTO got tired, so someone installed a 72 350 in it, so they could drive the car. But they had the forethought to keep the original engine, with the car.

[400 4spd.]

I knew a guy who, at around the age of 16-17, was hit by a car while he was walking along a sidewalk. He was injured very badly, but survived. When he got a settlement he went to the Chrysler-Plymouth dealership in Hampton Va. and drove away in a new white Superbird. It had the black bucket interior and 440-4 barrel.
Within 6 years he was working as a mechanic and living in a small, crappy rental house with a beautiful wife and 2 kids. The Bird was still the only family car, but had been ridden hard. The nose was beat up and in primer, and the 440 and Torqueflite had been pulled and replaced with a mid-60's 273 and whatever transmission it came with.
I lost touch with him after that, but heard his wife had left him not long afterwards.

But I'll bet he still had that original engine and transmission.

[OCMDGTO]

I pulled the original 400 out of my old 70 GTO & put it on a pallet wrapped in plastic along with a set of headers & AC parts and stored it in a farm building we used at work. Had permission from the owner. Little while later I go there to pick up work supplies and don't see my engine. Come to find out someone cleaned out the building and threw my engine outside and buried it. I searched for it and it was covered in dirt and mud. I was hot.

[SRR]

I had just the opposite happen to me once. (Around 1990) My wife and her friend wanted to go look at some cats or some chick thing, don't really remember. As we pull up to the house there is a 69 GTO and a 70 T/A parked in the driveway. Her friends husband and I screamed like little kids, A 70 Trans Am! Both women groaned at this point I had a 70 GTO at the time and thought the 69 GTO looked familiar, well the car was owned by his wife and we had talked once on the side of the road about our cars a few weeks prior to this. She comes out and recognizes me and we start to yak on about Pontiac's. Her husband is giving me the stink eye and my wife is glaring at her. They thought we had something going on, non car people don't understand. lol Well anyway we get to talking about the T/A and he says it's for sale for $1000. I almost passed out when he said this, then I said does it run? He says yes and throws me the keys! Turns out it was a Ram Air III car, 4 speed with air, white with a blue interior. The engine is a later model 6X head 400 that ran fantastic. I ended up buying the car and when I was picking it up I noticed among the huge pile of junk in his garage a Pontiac block. I asked about it and he says Oh, that came out of this car. WHERE ARE THE HEADS? "I brought them to the swap meet and when nobody bought them I left them there"

[Will]

If I actually cared how much my low-optioned '72 Formula was worth on the resale market I might be concerned with the fact the numbers matching block got toasted when the engine spun 4 main bearings and that one of the original 7K3 heads got mixed up with some other junk heads and ended up in the scrap heap when I moved a couple years ago. That's the way it goes...

[GOAT WHORE]

Back in 86 my buddy bought an 69 RAIII GTO. Ended up having a crack in the block. I told him not to throw it away as the numbers on the block matched the car. He didn't listen to me. Could have been sleeved I am sure.
That was back in 86, I was only 19 yrs old and numbers ment something to me then. Still do.

[John V.]

In '78, I bought a '73 TA with mostly original drivetrain.

I already was well aware of "matching nos.", but my real love was my '64 GTO convert. The TA was cool and to be my daily, dependable driver. It was mostly original drivetrain except for the intake which resulted in a rigged up shaker. Being unfamiliar with the TA, I didn't even realize how rigged up it was.

One day I punched it and the loose carb stud got sucked thru the engine.

Clattering to beat the band, I took it to a corner gas station. They tore it down and reported "good news" it would only need a valve job. Gave them the go ahead.

All was good til it was fired up. After getting warm, white smoke out the tail pipe. Tore it down again, they had missed a hairline crack in one of the cylinders.

Cut my losses, got it home to my apt complex. Working in the parking lot, swapped in a junk yard short block, swapped on my newly refreshed heads and intake.

Tossed the original short block in the apt dumpster.

It wasn't an SD so I didn't view that TA as all that collectible in the short time I owned it. Car still exists which is a whole nother story, but it has forever bothered me that I didn't save that block and look into getting it sleeved.