I would very much like to know the casting numbers and dates of the block and heads on this car, as mine is 336 VIN’s after this one.
That’s one of the odd things about 427 GT-E’s. The blocks usually have a casting date in August of 1967. The heads, if they are C8AE 6090-J, often have October or November 1967 casting dates.
If the car is built after February 23 the blocks still seem to have similar casting dates but the cylinder heads CAN be C8OE 6090 - N castings with February 1968 dates, of course machined as GT-E 427 cylinder heads with 14 bolt pattern on the exhaust flange. I have also seen a mix of C8AE 6090-J heads and C8OE 6090-N heads on at least three engines built after February 23 so that is a possibility as well.
Yea, that’s why I am so curious about this one. My guess is, after the Feb. 23 run, so few cars were built, that Mercury had their parts reps seek out existing long/short blocks from regional warehouses etc. to fill the remaining orders. Hence, the different cyl. heads, whatever they could come up with at the time. I feel like the early C8 427 blocks/ engines, without the later “ribs”, were only built in 2-3 batches . Of course, a lot were sold for service.
There were 427 blocks cast March 31968 but those seem to have not been used in production. Every GT-E that I have seen that has its original engine has a block cast in 1967.