Again without offending anyone i want to convey what i was told about BB crate motors (502s in particular) . i was all set to buy a 502/502 and mentioned it to my buddy who actually built two motors for me (full machine shop 15-20 employees /1 guys work on custom motors only). both him and his partner told me "yeah they are a good deal for the money but before you drop it into your car bring it in to us and have us do about $1500.00 bucks worth of machine work to it." well i then chose to have them built me a 454 aluminum head motor. during the course of the 6 months it was being built (when you spend $7000.00 on motor the work gets done when money is available) i happened to be at the shop twice when guys with 502 crates came in. both of them were using (burning) excessive oil. in both cases GM was dancing around on them. maybe this was a fluke but in my case I'm glad i went!
with the 454. hell who knows when i finally get it fired up it may burn oil. the bottom line from what my buddy told me is being mass produced you wont the fine detail work a good small shop will give you. and again I'm not trying to knock GM crate motors.
Larry (Z)
