Ok, about 30 years ago i bought a 57, 371 olds motor from a guy that said he had it in a 40 ford pickup. Said it was way to fast and decided to install a tamer motor for the wife to drive. "at least that's what he told me". Since life got in the way, i just decided to pull it apart last week and take a look. Been bored about 1/8" or 3/16's over and has some neat boxed rods, and bigger valves and had a J-2 tri power with bigger end carbs. Anyway i pulled the cam out and all i could find was it has MTC stamped in it, which i assume is a melling. It has R-8 stamped on the front and H-209 and ROC-1 stamped on the back. I try to search but could not find anything with those numbers. Seems melling has different markings now days. For all i know, it could be a stock J-2 cam. If anyone has any info, i would appreciate it. Next, is to figure out who's rods are in there. At first i though of Don's speed shop in Gardena, but not sure. Thanks.
In So Cal I can't imagine anyone not having an Engle Cam in their Olds whether a regrind or new with hard face overlay. (this one does not appear to be one of those) Does the the engine have adjustable rockers and dimples in the rocker covers? If the plates on the rods had real nice welds they were probably done by Don Appenfels. I would check them for straight anyway. He did really good work. I've seen plates on one side and both sides.
Thanks Jimmy. It does have adjustable pushrods. No dimpled valve covers. And here is a couple of pictures of the rods. Don was my guess also. And yes, really nice welds.
I wish i could belair but? All i know is who ever did them, new their stuff. The welds are impeccable. And the caps are machined down perfectly and stamped. I read an old article about Don's speed shop and he advertised " boxing rods was his specialty". Are these his? Don't know. All i know is that i heard about this being done back in the day for strength and with the other things done to this motor, it appears someone knew what they were doing. I am just getting the head apart and it has over sized valves and has been polished and ported very nice. Plus here is a thread i posted some time ago about this manifold. It also came from this motor but now i have it running on another motor that's pictured in the thread. https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/olds-j2-manifold-from-back-in-the-day.1098843/
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