Aluminum slant block

Before I bought my 1965 Dart 273 around 2008, I saw several 1963-4 Dart (or Valiant) with aluminum slants on the local craigslist. Don't see those anymore. The block in bare aluminum looks slick, with the smooth cylindrical bulges on the outside. Would draw a crowd at a car show.

Besides cool, a big advantage of the aluminum block is less front-end weight for better handling. A magazine ran a drag-race test and found the aluminum block no better, which they attributed to cylinder deflection and thus blowby at max pressure. A group on slantsix.org bought a lot of custom copper head gaskets over a decade ago. If the top is corroded too far, I doubt the block could be saved. If sound to where the piston rings reach, decking the block to that level with an extra thick gasket might work.

If I had the dual 4 bbl intake, I would consider using two EFI throttle bodies with tiny injectors installed. But, MPFI is even better. One guy here did that by drilling ports for injectors in a cast-iron head. I may try that someday by modifying an aluminum intake (have parts).