Mystery solved guys: it's a real 351 W. My mistake was using the old main bearing bottoms in order to keep from marring the new ones as the crank was going to be going in and out a lot. I new it when I put the old crank back in and it spun very freely. What happened is the old crank was re-conditioned .020" smaller, which naturally had .020" tighter bearing sleeves. With only about .001" clearance desired, the undersize sleeves wouldn't let the crank sit in the bottoms of the mains. I put new mains in, dropped the crank in, connected a rod & piston, and voila - the pistons are now .016" under the deck: right on spec. Keep this in mind if anyone else should run into this situation. Now, if anyone wants to know why a Brittish wire wheel won't come off the axle stub, even though it moves freely for a half inch, let me know. This one had the people at Dayton Wire Wheels and a couple other sport car restorers baffled.
