That is one hell of a motor. The 396 was known to throw rods and spin main bearings. The story I got from a book I have is Ford developed that engine back in 1963 for Nascar which it used a double overhead cam with a 50" timing chain which was a flop. Only 500 production cars were made with that plant. I had one in a 67 galaxy although not original in that year since Ford had already scrapped that design. Chevrolet bought the rights for that motor from ford and thus the RAT motor was born. Now back to being young and dumb. I purchased this 67 Galaxy with a huge engine and 4spd in like 1971 for $300.00. The engine run but was told it needed cams and a chain. I forked out 500.00 for the cams chain and gaskets and repaired it. It was a beast until one evening after being warned by a friend of a friend who nobody thought knew anything since although he raced every weekend was always working on the car, that I was over revving the motor. Well being he was about 10 years older and @ 17 I thought like most my age he was too old to know anything, I did not take his advise. One night I spun all the main bearings tearing up the crankshaft pretty badly. Well I did not have the money to rebuild the motor but was offered a rebuilt stock 428 CJ in exchange for that motor which was lunched. I thought the guy really liked me and felt sorry for me so I jumped on it. It was about 1978 when I was at the Chicago Rod and Custom show where I run into to this person who showed about 6 cars and low and behold there right next to his Shelby Cobra was this familiar looking engine with a for sale sign on it. It was stated that only 500 were ever in production with a description of all that was done to it. As I was talking to this gentleman I found out that it was the engine I traded for the 428CJ. The firm asking price was $9500.00. Wow was I shocked. I never felt I was taken advantage of since I traded an engine which was useless for another killer motor that run for a long time. Now it may not have been that very moment but somewhere in that timeframe I come to realize that hey maybe this guy who told me in a rather harsh way I was over revving the engine knew what he was talking about, since Don Schumacher has a pretty good record going in the NHRA. So I too went through a time which I knew everything. I now have a son who is 17 and it is like a flashback of my earlier years.LOL
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