The bad new is that most of these engines are refuse from the "cash for klunker program"
I have been kicking around wrecking yards for years. In that time I have scored a plethera of fine parts including one 428 cobra jet FE eng, many 440's , 454's, and two 455 HO pontiacs. You can say that it is a bit of a hobby of mine. Lately I have been trying for months to score a 350 vortec. Incredibly, I have been unsucessful here in the west palm area. I hear that there are many out there but I have had bad luck. I did buy a vortec block on craig's list for $75 here but no luck on heads here in the wrecking yard.
That is until today: I just happened to go to the wrecking yard today- without tools and found 4 vortec 350's, all in suv's and pickups. The catch you ask... they all had orange paint on them which to my dismay, indicates that no part of the engine will be sold. Period!!
Through some personal research, I found that these particular engines were fed a volitile dose of the killer kool aid... LIQUID FREEZE!!!!! Aparently when a customer utilized the pathetic government plan " cash for Klunkers" the dealers instructions were to document a procedure whereby they would give the engine a fair amount of Liquid freeze, causing the engine to fail.
I am not familiar with liquid freeze but from my research it sounds as it causes catastrophic damage to the cylinders.
I associate it to adding a can of ether to a diesel engine.
Anyways, I just thought that I would comment on this as this is the direction that car crafting is going. Instead, the govt is going to melt these engines down ( causing emission) then ship the metal to china and Japan ( more emission) whereby the developing countries will produce more engines (hybrid and more emission). Duh