When you're a 5-time DOTS honoree with no space for the '69 El Camino you just picked up, what's the next step? We say it's the addition of a parked-for-25-years S10 drag-racer project!
Back in the early 80s, Jesse's uncle decided he wanted a drag truck, so he grabbed a small-block Chevy engine out of... well, nobody knows where he got it, and then he dropped it into the S10's engine compartment. Big-and-little tires went on, along with some Erson valve covers (though the stock 2-barrel carb and cast-iron exhaust manifolds stayed put), and then the commissars of the California Smog Politburo went and instituted tailpipe testing and there was no way to register the thing. It sat for 25 long years, until Jesse decided he had to have it. He's going to check the head and block part numbers and figure out what he's got (307? 350? 283? 400? 262?), and he's leaning toward making it into the world's worst-handling 24 Hours of LeMons racer. He might also try to get the engine smog-legal and have the referees OK the engine, so's he can drive it on the street. What would you do?
This just in: A check of block/head part numbers indicates that the engine is a 283. Hmmm... how hard is it to find a 327 crank for cheap these days?