Wow! I spent the day in the shop working on this engine, and now the thread needs a ton of updating. I may have to break this into a couple of posts to keep things coherent.
As info, the question of hydraulic/solid cam has come up often. It is indeed an 82 block with an 82 hydraulic head. I didn't want a juice cam so I swapped in a full solid valve train from a 78 Volare with rocker arm and bolts, rockers, new lifters, and I think the original pushrods. The cam is a solid cam that was reground, it does NOT have the groove on the rear journal.
I will be checking the rings and grooves. These are new pistons and rings so only the problematic 700 miles on them.
Yes, I'm aware of the forged/cast crank business. I will double check this, but I'm pretty sure this is the first time this engine had been cracked open since it left Detroit.
