Ever had something work that shouldn't?

Me and my friend one time built a 350 chev. The cylinders should have been bored. They had huge gouges in the walls. We didn't.
We should of found a MATCHING PAIR of heads. We didn't. Grinding compound, a cordless drill and a new set of Comp springs. Thats it. We should of put a new cam in it. We used a fairly worn 280 h comp. Old lifters. We did use a new Fel-Pro gasket set. woooo. We should of used MATCHING MAIN CAPS! we didn't. The casts didn't match on the caps. From different Engines.
We should of had it align bored. We didn't. That little bastard shouldn't have ran. It did. And it still does, suprisingly strong for 993 heads, a holley 600 and edelbrock RPM, 280 H COMP CAM, original dish tops and Auto Zone junk headers. It just ate up the trans we built. AND WE DID THE TRANS THE WRIGHT WAY?

I used to assemble my 409 A fuel engine with a 3/8 impact wrench, every single fastener. I could do a teardown and rebuild in the pits in 40min. New rings, rods, mains, plugs, spray the headgaskets and send it down the track!**)

My buddy had a nice 66 impala that he blew the engine in. I had a disassembeled 283 sitting in my garage that i did'nt have a home for. Niether one of us had any engine experience, so we thought "how hard can it be". So we just took out some tools and put it together. No torque specs, no matched caps, bearings etc, no nothing just put it together, painted it and stuck it in. It worked fine. It lasted until he was able to get enough money together to rebuild his. ????????