On the question of service blocks, I have a service short block in my GT500. The block has no numbers, has ribs on the outside of the lower block, and has a date code next to the
oil filter adapter. It was a 1973 date, though I can't recall just what. a "3" with a couple of dots cast under it, a letter, and two digits. The dots are apparently what lets you know it isn't a '63.
Hope that helps. I've lived in Calif for years. With the original car, the smog isn't an issue, but I keep hearing they want to reverse that. The car is 100% stock, but I don't doubt that the state will figure a way to get past that.
As far as the governor goes, Der Governator hasn't really accomplished much, but after five years of Gray-out Davis, that's almost a relief. We'd probably be better off if all the Pols would just go talk themselves to death. Or as a friend asked, "If we stop voting for them, do you think they'll go away?"
You know, my Shelby driven maybe a couple of thousand miles a year to the odd local car show, is far less of a pollution problem (despite smelling like gasoline as you watch the unburnt hydrocarbons drip from the drains in the exhaust collector) than is the college kid's mid-'80s smogmobile that he drives to the bars at night, and the river every warm weekend, and the snow every cold weekend. If the state really wants to make a difference in pollution (and I'm not going to go too far down that road), they'd make the "Historical Vehicle" plates like I have available to the owners of specialty cars, too, and use that or another means to differentiate between the hobbyists and the folks who drive ancient, ill-maintained cars as transportation.
Don't know how to deal with it, really. In Singapore they sell you a "COE," or Certificate Of Entitlement, to own a car at all. If you can't pony up a few bucks (okay, more like SG$20k-30k) every ten years, you're on the bus. (I was on the bus a lot in Singapore.)
The other end of it is the SUV panic. My SUV runs clean. If I don't mind a $70 fill-up, what's the difference? But the Calif parking lots have all been re-striped over the past 10-15 years so you can't park a half-ton truck or an SUV in most lots without going to the back of the lot, and taking a couple of spaces. I live in farm country. The rice growers aren't going to trade in their pickups for Civic Hybrids. I've got a 6' son and a daughter that's heading there. I'm 6'5". I'm not going to trade in my "bus" for a Civic Hybrid.
Rant rant rant
