ZL-1 stamping numbers

[GMH454]

Date is 1969 can't remember the actual but I think its Febuary. Will dig it out from the back of the garage on the weekend.
The numbers I was referring to were 107.
This is stamped in the Aluminium up near the top edge of the block in the lifter valley area. I think the back of the block.
What surprised me however was the bottom end caps were also stamped with the same number (using the same stamp) caps are steel and are also stamped with a sequence number. 1,2,3, etc. They were covered with surface rust and I did'nt really think they belonged with the engine but I was cleaning them up as I was sick of geting rust dust on my hands everytime I move them.
I can understand a race team may number the caps but would they number them in sequence with a block number
Engine pad stamping is1-8880-61-A, which is numerically in line with race engines supplied in around 1971.

[Kurt S]

They had to do some machining after the blocks were finished (I don't recall what they did) and they #'d the blocks and caps for reassembly.

[JoeC]

There were special assembly instructions for the ZL1 engines. There was an interesting post on this subject by a Chevy engineer on a Camaro site. Here is a copy of some of it.
" All manner of weird things were ordered via the COPO route - there were literally hundreds of COPO's issued, normally at the request of Engineering. If they were low-volume limited-edition cars (as few as one, in some cases), engineers (like I was) were assigned to get the special parts to the plant, gather them in one spot in the plant so they wouldn't get lost (or put on the wrong car), work with Fisher Body for any special parts that they had to install during the body-in-white, paint, and body trim operations, and literally follow the car through the plant to make sure the special parts were assembled properly. Higher-volume COPO's only needed this hands-on approach for the first batch of cars; after that the plant simply treated them like normal options. Most COPO's were a pain, but some were fun - when I was a young Production Engineer, I was assigned to the ZL-1 engines, and followed them down the engine dress line, making sure all the bolts that went into the aluminum blocks and heads were coated with anti-seize, hand-started, and torqued with torque wrenches instead of the production power tools. Watching them come off the line and go through the roll test was incredible - the roll-testers nearly fought each other to get the next one coming off the line. The good old days....."

[Kurt S]

Joe,
Who posted that and on what site?
Thanks!

[GMH454]

Thanks guys, does that mean all ZL-1s icluding the Camaros had matching block # stamped in the block and caps ? Also does anyone really know what the 107 means. Was it the 107th engine assembled ? Now that I think of it were the crate engines completed and put away or were they completed at time of sale, say 1971 or 1972. I wish I knew. Guy I bought my engine of after I bought it told me he bought it from Greenwoods workshop in Florida in about 1976. Has a burned TRW 2300
piston still in it.

[Peter]

Kurt, I'm 68SS396 from the Team Camaro website, which is where the post that JoeC is talking about originated from. I'm surprised you missed it! The link is
http://www.camaros.net/forum/Forum2/HTML/000286.html

[COPO]

I would be interested in the numbers from your ZL-1 block. Specifically, the block casting number from the rear, the block casting date and inventory number from the driver's side of the block and the assembly date coded from the front pad. I have a '69 ZL-1 block as well and would like to compare numbers to mine.

[Edited by COPO (09-27-2000 at 12:21 PM).]