GM Crate Engine Decoding Help

Decoding a GM Crate Engine Help. My brother is picking up a 350 4 bolt main crate motor and actually tried to call into GM and they were about useless to him. said the casting number puts it between 1969-1985...well duh! 3970010 casting is pretty straight forward but tried to get them to look up the serial number and they said oh we can only tell you the engine from the casting which is bull! the date code casting is H 16 8 which should be August 16th 1968/1978 when combined with the block casting number. the pad is stamped CE9B40964 which is a CE (crate engine) 9 = 69/79? B=?? then 40964 should be the serial number for the engine it was made to replace. anyone ever try to decode one of these before or had better luck when calling in. I am told there is no other numbers present on the pad, so either they were machined off (highly doubt since the CE# is still there) or it was not stamped and was an over the counter generic order but that's just a guess based on other Crate Engines i have seen. I know if i had the heads i could give him a better estimate on the power numbers but i wont have those until this weekend. Yes i have revisited the nastyZ, camarotech, chevelletech sites and read the original GM letter stating what the crate engine basic stampings are but thought maybe, just maybe someone here might have a little more resources on this one.
So to recap
Casting Number :3970010
Date Casting H 16 8
Serial Number CE9B40964
Partial VIN: blank