My cousin and I - with nothing better to do, of course - decided that we needed to "get rid" of an old car that he had. It was a 1967 Plymouth station wagon with a 383 2bbl.
Well, we thought about it a while (yes, it involved alcohol. LOL) and decided that we wanted to see how long the engine would run without any oil. Yep, we drained the oil on purpose! Then we cranked it up and put a brick on the gas pedal. It ran WOT for about 10 minutes before it overheated and quit.
We laughed like crazy. We had a couple more brews and then I sat down in it and hit the starter. It fired right up! No smoke, death rattles or anything. That was one tough Mopar!
Eventually, we parted out that car and, yes, we kept the engine. My cousin had the bright idea that he wanted to run the "fender bender" class at the Nashville Speedway. He had an old Chrysler 300 that he planned on using, but it needed an engine. Yep, you guessed it, we put that old 383 in it - without ever pulling the pan off to check the damage. All we knew was that it would run.
He ran that car 2 seasons before wrecking it beyond repair at the Highland Rim dirt track. He let the whole thing go, although I was curious to see the crank journals. I'm sure that they were scored, but, like I say, that engine was tough.
Personally, I'd pull the pan, if it were my engine, and check the crank and rod journals. You might be Okay, but...
Jeff
