We also bought a ZL-1 block from Lamar Walden, probably 1987 or so. We had just acquired the #4 ZL-1 Camaro and needed an engine. At Super Chev Indy, I spoke with a Chevy engineer involved with the planned re-run of the ZL-1 block. Walden was somehow involved and the engineer suggested I contact him. Lamar told me the proposed new castings were a different alloy than the originals and were much darker in color, not suitable for our purposes. Lamar had just purchased a number of original vintage block castings from McLaren Racing so we acquired one of those. It was the first one I had seen so I did not recognize that it had unusual characteristics not seen on any other ZL-1 block.
It's my guess that the other block Lamar sold was one of the McLaren blocks. Even if it was true, the yarn about getting blocks and stamps from Chevrolet wouldn’t have done much good. Production ZL-1 engine assemblies have a casting date, a casting sequence number, a machining sequence number and of course the pad stamping. There were more blocks sold [approximately 200] than complete engines [182]. While there were a number of blocks out there with unstamped pads, it would require an incredible amount of luck for a random block casting to have the three other ‘tells' aligned with a specific pad stamping.
The ZL-1 #51/Lamar Walden story appeared in the February 2009 issue of Hot Rod Magazine. There’s a photo of the alleged original block with a large chunk missing. It’s hard to imagine it was repaired but the article claims it was and re-united with the car while Reggie Jackson owned it.
Lamar impressed me as good ‘ol Southern gentleman. I simply don’t believe he would have re-stamped anything.
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Last edited by William; 08-16-2023 at 03:17 PM.
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08-16-2023, 02:26 PM
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