Well now I’ve got a quandary. With oldskool’s great guidance I went searching for engine #’s. My assumption was that the engine was a later model as there were some misc vacuum hoses that appeared to be later emissions type stuff. Well the engine decoding proved otherwise. With a wire brush, the numbers cast into the block cleaned right up. The #’s that were stamped took a bit of degreaser and a tooth brush and they cleaned up well enough. After I verified the Date and Block codes I looked this up on the Wallace cross reference tool. Everything indicated it was a 68 engine not a later engine (see attached screenshot of the results). Well, armed with info, I now had to hunt for the engine Vin # to see if it matched the Car’s Vin#. Surprise, surprise they did match. I had a hunch they might match as I purchased the car from a lady that had it for (38) years. She indicated no major engine work was performed in the time she owned it. I just wasn’t sure what had happened in the previous (12) years of the cars existence. What had thrown me originally was the thermostatic vacuum switch which was not connected and the presence of loose vacuum lines. After finding the engine was a 68 I checked my repair manuals and sure enough these were installed in 68 and later to help with engine cooling over 230F.

So now to the quandary part. I was thinking the motor wasn’t #’s matching to the car and since it needs a refresh I figured I’d try and find a 400 and refresh it and end up with added horsepower. Know with the numbers matching discovery I’m not sure that is the right path forward. Maybe I should spend the money refreshing this motor. Quite a difference between 265 hp 2BBL and a 4BBL 290 or higher hp motor. I’d appreciate any thoughts about which way to head. Given it’s a convertible I’m really after a dependable Sunday driver not looking for race car.

Block Casting #9790079
Date code. E148 which translates to May 14, 1968
Center Exhaust #’s. 17 which indicates 17 heads
Block code. WC