ZL-1 stamping numbers

[GMH454]

Please don't get excited. This engine was a crate engine. I have found some numbers stamped into various parts of it and would like to confirm their appropriateness. Do I throw up the questions here or should I address them somewhere else for confidentiallity sake (if so where).
Does anyone actually know how many of these were made. I've heard 154 but also heard that they were cast in batches of 300.

[COPO]

You can post them here. Nothing secretive IMO. The important info is the casting date. A 1969 casting date is certainly going to command more value than a later year.

[JoeC]

I don't know how many ZL1 motors were built but I have read that some of the race teams took them away by the truck load.

[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

[JoeC]

Kurt, his name on Team Camaro is JohnZ.
I also e-mailed him a copy of the COPO form that was in a magazine article about Kevin's COPO 427 1968 Camaro. Which is a subject still up for debate. Here is a copy of his reply.
"This is a normal COPO form, used to request production of a unit with equipment not in accordance with the released available production vehicle specifications.

What this form is requesting is to add the COPO 9737 Sports Car Conversion Package to two cars for which orders have already been submitted; the line entitled "Other RPO's....." identifies other options already ordered on the two units, which is why that line ends with "N/C", as those options have already been priced and charged on the original orders for those two cars, so there is no additional charge for them under the requested COPO.

The COPO 9737 cost $160.10, was available only on cars already ordered with the COPO 9561 427 package, and consisted of Z28 wheels and tires (E70x15 Goodyear Wide Tread GT's on 15x7 "YH" wheels, the Z28 Tire Pressure Sticker (code "DX"), and a 140 mph speedometer.

This form appears to add the 9737 package to two cars which were already ordered as 9561's, but adding the 9737 package was apparently overlooked when the original orders were submitted - this corrects the ordering error.

Best Regards,

John