Once Iʼd realised the Stoveboltʼs engine had to be rebuilt, it was nearly Christmas – when engine shops are swamped with end-of-season work. I asked around: who best to give my small-block Chevy its first rebuild in 22 years? Three names kept cropping up. One said he couldnʼt look at it before June. One was too busy to answer his phone. The third was Rob Loaring, who thought he just might have a window in February.
I went to see him at ICE Automotive, his small, spotless outfit near Milton Keynes. Rob has built winning engines and run winning cars in drag racing for more than 40 years, and was inducted into the British Drag Racing Hall of Fame in 2016. Historic racing is now a big part of his business (although the day he finished my engine he flew to California and the dry lakes at El Mirage, to look after a customerʼs straight-line record car). Rob is a pure enthusiast, whether heʼs building an engine to deliver ultimate power over a drag strip, or one that can win the Goodwood TT, or – in my case – one that can have enough grunt to scare me on the hills, sit unflustered in the jams going home and see me out.
First he stripped my engine. Block pressure-tested, crank and rods crack-tested: all okay. The Stoveboltʼs original small-block 283 is long gone, and itʼs now an early-ʼ70s mechanical-lifter 350 with standard smog heads and a few hot-rod bits. The camshaft had high lobe wear, and over the years debris from the worn valvegear had scored the bores, so new pistons and a 50-thou rebore were a must. Rather than rebuilding the old smog heads and valvegear, we decided to invest in new, fully built high-performance heads from Dart in Warren, Michigan.
Stir in the new flat-tappet competition cam, plus lifters and rockers, from COMP Cams in Memphis; flat-top pistons from SRP in Cypress, California; new oil pump, timing chain, water pump; plus bearings, gaskets, head bolts and all the little bits. Pushrods were £12 each, all 16 of them. The parts bill, including shipment, came to £4173, of which £2000 was for the heads. ICEʼs labour costs are a very reasonable £60 an hour – compare that with your local BMW dealer. Rob charged me for 68 hours, although Iʼm sure he did more than that, including the odd weekend. Then there was £600 for a long dayʼs fettling on his dyno.
We had one significant delay: Dart heads werenʼt on the shelf, so we had to wait for the next batch to be made. But I was reassured by
